Increasing wind and some light precip should have riders and climbers thinking about stepping back from large committing features in the alpine.
Reports of hard wind slabs on Sunday in combination with warming temperatures, increasing wind and light precip on Monday has brought the windslab problem back. Wind slab development will likely be limited to the alpine in lee areas.
Slightly warmer temperatures are expected with some increasing wind and very light precip over the day on Monday. A slightly more assertive (but not much) pulse of precip is expected Wednesday (5-10cm). Wind velocity will remain high over the next few days from the W-SW at higher elevations.
Faceting continues. Snow surface conditions range from hard slabs to re-crystalized soft snow with little wind effect. The Nov 8 crust is down 20-30cm up to 2400m which is facetting over time. The lower snowpack is a mix of weak facets & crusts. Snowpack depths at treeline vary from 60-90 cm with up to 140 cm in lee areas.
Sunshine Village ski patrol reported ski cutting hard wind slabs from size 1 to 1.5 in the low alpine today. In one instance, it was reported that the wind slab stepped down to the Oct crust on the flank of the avalanche.
