We've finally enjoyed a spring melt-freeze cycle. With good timing, fun and safe skiing has been possible. That will change this weekend. Very high freezing levels, with above freezing overnight temps will prevent overnight recoveries.
Weather Forecast
Recent clear skies and below freezing temps overnight have formed a strong melt-freeze crust, that holds up until mid day. This continues today, with an alpine high of 3'C and a low of -1'C overnight. However over the weekend temps continue to rise, and won't drop below freezing overnight. Temps to 14'C and freezing levels to 3500m are forecast.
Snowpack Summary
N'ly winds kept conditions cool yesterday. The melt-freeze crust on the surface is over 15cm thick, with the top ~5cm breaking down to "corn" by early afternoon. Below this crust is ~60cm of weak, moist snow; a concern if the crust breaks down. On steep, N'ly aspects above ~2000m the snow remains dry. At low elevations the snow is rapidly receding.
Avalanche Summary
There has been very little avalanche activity lately, but sporadic avalanches continue to occur. On Tuesday, a size 3 wet slab on the SW face of Cheops Mountain at about 2500 meters. Glide-cracks are opening up on many slopes and can fail unpredictably.
Problems
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.
Wet Slabs
Wet Slab avalanches are the release of a cohesive layer of snow (a slab) that is generally moist or wet when the flow of liquid water weakens the bond between the slab and the surface below (snow or ground). They often occur during prolonged warming events and/or rain-on-snow events. Wet Slabs can be very unpredictable and destructive.