Danger on SOUTH and WEST facing slopes could be CONSIDERABLE in the afternoon.
Summary
Confidence
Good
Weather Forecast
Monday: Expect lots of sunny skies, with alpine temperatures reaching -3 and freezing levels climbing to 1500m. Winds should be light to moderate from the northeast. Clouds may build in the afternoon and give intense convective snowshowers.Tuesday: Mostly clear skies with alpine temperatures of -4 and freezing levels around 1500m. Winds ease to light easterlies.Wednesday: Expect clouds to build through the day with alpine temperatures reaching -4 and winds turning southwesterly but staying light.
Avalanche Summary
The recent storm snow continues to be reactive to rider triggering and explosive testing but the size of the events has dropped to predominantly size 1.0. These avalanches are failing mostly in wind loaded features on north through northeast aspects.
Snowpack Summary
Isolated convective snowshowers continue to materialize and there is up to 40cm of new storm snow in some locations. This has settled rapidly into small soft slabs due to strong greenhouse effect. The interface with this new snow is predominantly crusts (sun, wind and/or meltfreeze crusts). The bonds at this interface are improving but where the crusts are smooth the bonding is still questionable. 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. About 70cm below the surface you will likely find a melt-freeze crust from previous sunny weather. At the same interface spotty surface hoar lingers on high, sheltered north facing terrain. Where present, this surface hoar continues to yield sudden results in stability tests.Cornices are huge and have fresh tabs from the recent storm snow.
mpeter,
Avalanche Canada
