Storm slabs instabilities will take longer than usual to stabilize as cold temperatures persist through the rest of the week.
A buried surface hoar layer down 60 - 80 cm, is becoming primed for human triggering as the cohesion of the overlaying slab increases.
Up to 80cm of recent storm snow is overlaying a surface hoar layer and a sugary, facetted and weak lower snowpack. Instabilities within the recent storm snow may take slightly longer then usual to bond/heal with the cold weather forecasted for the rest of the week. It's possible small avalanches in the upper snowpack could scrub down to the facets, creating a larger then expected avalanche.
Numerous loose dry (slough) avalanches observed up to size 1.5, trigged naturally and by skier traffic on Thursday. A couple of small (size 1.5) storm slab avalanches were observed during explosive control work near ridgetops in treeline and alpine terrain on Thursday.
As the upper snowpack settles and gains cohesion we could potentially see larger slab avalanches, that have the potential to step down to deeper weak layers.
Another 20-30 cm has fallen since Wednesday morning. There is now a significant amount (up to 80cm) of low density snow (lacking cohesion) overlaying a potentially weak layer of surface hoar. The lower snowpack is made up of sugary facetted snow at all elevations. A widespread rain curst remains on the ground at the treeline and below treeline.
At treeline, snowpack depths range from 100-180 cm.
Thursday Night Cloudy with isolated flurries throughout the region, generally light westerly winds at ridgetop, treeline temperatures will be cold around -15 C.
Friday
Mostly cloudy with some sunny periods, moderate southwest wind at ridgetop and cold treeline temperatures persist at -15 to -20 C.
SaturdayA mix of sun and clouds, moderate southwest wind and colder temperatures persist, -15 to -20 C.
SundayCloudy with light snow amounts, moderate southwest wind and temperatures warming slightly to -8 C.
More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.
