Weather Forecast
Sunday: Expect mixed skies, with a chance of isolated flurries. Alpine temperatures should reach -5 with freezing levels around 1400m under light southeasterly winds.Monday/Tuesday: Expect a clearing trend with scattered clouds, alpine temperatures reaching -3 and light easterly winds turning northeasterly.
Avalanche Summary
The recent storm snow has been reactive to rider triggering and explosive testing up to size 2.0. These avalanches are failing predominantly in wind loaded features on north through northeast aspects..
Snowpack Summary
Up to 15cm of new snow has fallen recently. This has settled rapidly into small reactive soft slabs due to strong greenhouse effect. The interface with this new snow is predominantly crusts (sun, wind and/or meltfreeze crusts) and where the crusts are smooth the bond is poor. Last Wednesday's storm deposited about 50cm of snow and was accompanied by moderate to strong south/southwest winds. Dense windslabs are now buried, but may still be reactive to large triggers in lee and cross-loaded alpine features. Up to 85cm below the surface you will likely find a melt-freeze crust from previous sunny weather. At the same interface, you may find spotty surface hoar on high north facing terrain. Large natural activity and remote triggers from earlier in the week suggest the surface hoar may continue to be reactive, especially with the weight of the new snow.Cornices are huge and have fresh tabs from the recent storm snow.
Problems
Wind Slabs
Wind Slab avalanches are the release of a cohesive layer of snow (a slab) formed by the wind. Wind typically transports snow from the upwind sides of terrain features and deposits snow on the downwind side. Wind slabs are often smooth and rounded and sometimes sound hollow, and can range from soft to hard. Wind slabs that form over a persistent weak layer (surface hoar, depth hoar, or near-surface facets) may be termed Persistent Slabs or may develop into Persistent Slabs.
Cornices
Cornice Fall is the release of an overhanging mass of snow that forms as the wind moves snow over a sharp terrain feature, such as a ridge, and deposits snow on the downwind (leeward) side. Cornices range in size from small wind drifts of soft snow to large overhangs of hard snow that are 30 feet (10 meters) or taller. They can break off the terrain suddenly and pull back onto the ridge top and catch people by surprise even on the flat ground above the slope. Even small cornices can have enough mass to be destructive and deadly. Cornice Fall can entrain loose surface snow or trigger slab avalanches.