Avoid all avalanche terrain during periods of high hazard.
Rain and high freezing levels can trigger avalanches on buried weak layers.
A weak layer from January, consisting of a melt-freeze crust with facets, is being tested by heavy loads from snow, rain, and warming. This layer could be a concern in the south and east ends of the region in shallower snowpack areas.
Rain and 3000 m freezing levels will destabilize the surface snow, making wet loose, and wet slab avalanches where storm slabs previously existed.
On Monday, numerous natural wet loose avalanches up to size 2 were reported in the southern part of the region. Check out this MIN report for more details.
We expect a natural avalanche cycle to continue with rain and warm temperatures destabilizing the snowpack.
Thank you for sharing your observations to the MIN.
10 mm of rain is expected to create moist surfaces on all aspects and elevations. This falls on 40 to 60 cm of settling storm snow which was redistributed into deeper deposits on north- and east-facing slopes by strong southwest winds. This sits atop 80 to 100 cm of settled snow on north-facing slopes, and several thin melt-freeze layers on south-facing slopes.
A supportive crust is found below this, on all aspects except on high, north-facing alpine terrain. Snow is reportedly bonded well to it.
A weak layer of facets and surface hoar from February is now 90 to 150 cm deep and a layer of facets and surface hoar from late January is 110 to 190 cm deep. Some recent planar results were reported in the Manning Park area.
Tuesday Night
Cloudy. 15 to 45 km/h south ridgetop winds. Treeline temperature 5 °C. Freezing level 1300 m.
Wednesday
Mostly cloudy with light rain. 15 to 20 km/h south ridgetop winds. Treeline temperature 10 °C. Freezing level rises to 3200 m.
Thursday
Cloudy with wet snow 5 to 10 cm above 1800 m. 15 to 50 km/h south ridgetop winds. Treeline temperature 4 °C.
Friday
Cloudy with snow 5 to 10 cm above 1500 m. 15 gusting to 65 km/h southeast ridgetop winds. Treeline temperature 4 °C.
More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.
