Ohau

Small loose wet avalanches are still possible out of steep terrain when the sun heats things up.

Time your turns for the Goldilocks zone (not too firm, not too slushy) or work the shady aspects and there should be some great skiing.

Mainly fine, with morning frosts.

Wind at 1000 metres: Northeasterly 40 km/h developing early afternoon.

Wind at 2000 metres: Northeasterly 40 km/h developing in the morning, rising to 60 km/h in the evening.

Freezing level: 1400 metres, lifting to 1800 metres in the morning.

Expect melt-freeze crusts on Tuesday, and some slick surfaces may still be lurking after the big wind events last week. Take an ice axe and crampons for travel above the snowline.

Moderate

• The snowpack structure is well understood.
• We are uncertain due to a limited number of field observations.
• We are uncertain about how the timing or intensity of solar radiation will affect the snowpack.

One small storm slab avalanche was observed at Ohau ski area on August 9th on a northeast aspect at around 1950m.

Several small natural and ski cut loose wet avalanches also ran on the 9th at Ohau ski area below 1650m on northeast through to southeast facing slopes.

An estimated 20cm of new snow fell in the northern part of the forecast region over the weekend, with roughly 15cm falling near Ohau ski area. This new snow is probably still dry above around 2100m on shady aspects, but it will be settling quickly. On sunny slopes, or below around 2000m in the shade, the snow became moist during Monday and will be capped with a melt-freeze crust on Tuesday morning.

The lower pack was a mix of melt freeze crusts on sunny slopes, windscoured crusts in exposed areas, and drifts of firm, windpressed snow. With a thin snowpack in places and some cold nights, faceting has been observed in the lower pack, but so far we're not seeing any weak layers that are causing problems.