A few hours of gusty southerly winds quickly formed thin windslabs above treeline yesterday.
Weather Forecast
Expect up to 5cm of snow, mostly cloudy skies and moderate S'ly winds today. A brief ridge of high pressure will bring cool and dry conditions on Tuesday with sunny periods, alpine temps dropping to -20 and N'ly winds. On Wednesday, the next system will move in with increasing cloud, strong SW winds and 10cm by the end of the day.
Snowpack Summary
At treeline and above, thin soft windslabs have formed on wind exposed features. Elsewhere, 40cm of loose storm snow overlies a well settled snowpack. The Nov28 surface hoar down 80cm and is found in some locations. The early Nov crust is widespread and down 1.5m. Tests on these layers indicate they would be hard to trigger.
Avalanche Summary
No new natural avalanches were observed yesterday. Avalanche technicians traveling over Little Sifton and into the Hermit Meadows area found 10cm thick windslabs on convex features that were easily triggerable to size 1 above 2300m.
Confidence
Intensity of incoming weather systems is uncertain
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.