New snow, blue sky and a weak snowpack that is currently unstable. Conservative terrain choices are a must for the next few days. Many accidents happen immediately following a new snowfall when the sky clears.
Weather Forecast
Cooler air is pushing into the region bringing with it cold temperatures (-15C at 2800m), light to moderate northern winds and maybe another 4-5cm of new snow overnight as the cooler air pushes out the last remaining warm air in the region.
Avalanche Summary
Numerous loose dry sluffs up to sz 1 were observed from Alpine and treeline areas on all aspects. There were also numerous slabs within the storm snow mainly on E and N aspects in Alpine and treeline areas up to size 2. One noteable slide was seen on the SE face of Mt Smuts. The entire face and some of the feeder crossloaded gullies on either side of the main path released sz 3 and ran to the valley floor. This avalanche was up to 300m wide with fracture depths of 50cm to 200cm running 1000m.
Snowpack Summary
25cm of new HST over the past 24hrs has fallen on the previous snow surface which consisted of stiff windslabs, facetted snow and ground. Easy shears are being found at the HST interface but a lack of wind (in areas travelled today) prevented any slab initiation. Deeper in the snowpack the concern is for the midpack and basal facet and depth hoar interface. Moderate to hard result are being encountered on this layer but they are a very sudden collapse indication that when a load triggers this weakness, its likely to propogate across a feature.
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.
Loose Dry
Loose Dry avalanches are the release of dry unconsolidated snow and typically occur within layers of soft snow near the surface of the snowpack. These avalanches start at a point and entrain snow as they move downhill, forming a fan-shaped avalanche. Other names for loose-dry avalanches include point-release avalanches or sluffs.
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.