A brief reprieve from storm systems, but the next one on Wednesday looks warm. Enjoy the good snow for one more day, but be careful as the Halloween crust/ facet layer is spooky!
Summary
Weather Forecast
Tuesday is a rest between storms with light winds, cool temps and precip starting in the afternoon (10 cm overnight). Wednesday is looking to be quite warm with freezing levels rising to ~ 2500m and rain at lower elevations. Temps will cool on Thursday with freezing levels dropping to ~ 2000m and 20- 30 cm of snow.
Snowpack Summary
30 - 70 cms of new snow over the last 5 days has been blown into windslabs up to 1 meter deep in the alpine. Where windslabs don't exist, this snow has formed a 30-60 cm slab that sits on the Halloween crust/facet interface. This interface is a crust below ~ 2400m on polar aspects and higher on solar aspects. Total snowpack at treeline is 80-100 cm
Avalanche Summary
Lots of avalanche activity on Monday. Some examples: -Widespread natural activity up to size 2.5 on the National Geographics and Whitehorn gullies in the Lake Louise ski hill and backcountry-A size 3 on a NE aspect of Pilot mountain with a ~ 500m fracture line. Many of the avalanches initiated in the low alpine where the halloween crust exists
Confidence
Due to the number of field observations on Monday