It's looking warm and wet again today. Warm temps overnight prevented an overnight recovery; as precipitation and winds pick up this afternoon hazard will rise. A cooling trend through the weekend should help to tighten up the snowpack.
Weather Forecast
Today expect flurries to accumulate to 10cm, with freezing levels hovering around 1800m and rain at low elevations. Winds should shift to S'ly and continue to load lees. Overnight we should see another 10cm snow with freezing levels lowering to 1200m. Saturday and Sunday should be a mix of sun and cloud, with a cooling trend and alpine highs of -6.
Snowpack Summary
Variable winds loaded lee's overnight. ~20cm of moist snow overlies a crust everywhere other than N aspects above 1800m. Below 1900m this slab has been saturated by rain. The upper snowpack is a complex mix of crusts. Deeper in the snowpack, old persistent weak layers that include crusts and facets have been reactive to large triggers like cornices
Avalanche Summary
High elevation N aspects hold dry snow that sluffs with skier traffic. At lower elevations, the wet snow is easily triggered running far and fast on crusts. Yesterday we observed a few size 2 natural storm slab avalanches with moist debris running to the end of the paths. Cornices or smaller avalanches have been triggering deep persistent layers.
Confidence
Timing of incoming weather systems is uncertain
Problems
Storm Slabs
Storm Slab avalanches are the release of a cohesive layer (a slab) of new snow that breaks within new snow or on the old snow surface. Storm-slabs typically last between a few hours and few days (following snowfall). Storm-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.
Persistent Slabs
Persistent Slab avalanches are the release of a cohesive layer of snow (a slab) in the middle to upper snowpack, when the bond to an underlying persistent weak layer breaks. Persistent layers include: surface hoar, depth hoar, near-surface facets, or faceted snow. Persistent weak layers can continue to produce avalanches for days, weeks or even months, making them especially dangerous and tricky. As additional snow and wind events build a thicker slab on top of the persistent weak layer, this avalanche problem may develop into a Deep Persistent Slab.
Loose Wet
Loose Wet avalanches are the release of wet unconsolidated snow or slush. These avalanches typically occur within layers of wet snow near the surface of the snowpack, but they may quickly gouge into lower snowpack layers. Like Loose Dry Avalanches, they start at a point and entrain snow as they move downhill, forming a fan-shaped avalanche. Other names for loose-wet avalanches include point-release avalanches or sluffs. Loose Wet avalanches can trigger slab avalanches that break into deeper snow layers.