Avalanche Forecast

Fair - Due to variable snowpack conditions

Overnight and Wednesday: Light to locally moderate snowfall overnight, easing off by Wednesday morning / Strong to extreme southwest winds / Freezing level at 1600m overnight dropping to 800m by Wednesday morning Thursday: Light snowfall / Light southwest winds / Freezing level at 800mFriday: Light snowfall / Light south winds / Freezing level at 700m

Several natural skier triggered slab avalanches up to size 2 were reported throughout the region on the weekend. Check out the Incident Report database for a couple recent submissions. I expect much of the same with wind and snow forecast for Tuesday night.

Up to 70 cm of moist storm snow has fallen in the past several days. This snowfall was accompanied by generally moderate to more recently strong southwest winds forming wind slabs in exposed leeward terrain. Below the storm snow you may find a layer of surface hoar or a thin sun crust that were buried on November 28th. Snowpack tests have shown easy results on this layer.In the mid snowpack, there may be a thin buried surface hoar layer between 90 and 110cm deep. At the base of the snowpack sits the early November rain crust. This layer seems most likely to be found in deeper snowpack areas at higher elevations. These layers have been unreactive in recent days, but may have the potential to 'wake-up' with continued loading and forecast warming.In general, snowpack data is sparse in this region and significant variations likely exist from one drainage to another. In short, digging down and making your own observations will be critical to safe slope selection. Any observations from the field are welcome at [email protected].