The avalanche cycle has passed its peak; however the danger remains elevated for the rest of the week as more snow falls. Cooling temps have stabilized the snowpack below treeline, but overhead hazard remains a concern, and treeline and alpine areas remain reactive to human triggering. Better conditions ahead with the next snow.
More snow will add mass to the slab sitting on top of the mid-pack Nov 22 facet/crust layer and the deeper Nov 13 facet/crust layer. While the likelihood will slowly decrease, particularly below treeline, we still expect to see large avalanches occur on these layers for the next couple of days.
With continued strong W/SW winds and snowfall we expect to see dry loose avalanches at tree line and above on Tuesday and Wednesday, especially in steep couloirs and gullies. Best to avoid this type of terrain until the conditions improve.
Ongoing precipitation continues to build storm slabs, while strong SW winds continue to actively redistribute snow into wind slabs in lee terrain at higher elevations. These slabs will remain reactive on Wednesday.
We continue to be in the midst of a widespread avalanche cycle, although on Tuesday, the avalanche activity slowed down due to cooling. However, over the past few days there have been many large natural and explosive-triggered avalanches all over the place, some running down as wet debris in the runout zones. Natural avalanches up to size 3.5 have been reported. We expect avalanche activity to continue as the next wave of snow arrives overnight Tuesday.
With the continued storms over the past week, there is now a 50-100 cm slab overlying the Nov 22 facet layer. This layer has been producing large avalanches, however, Tuesday's cooling temperatures took the avalanche cycle off its peak as we cooled 7 degrees in 12-hours. Low elevations have stabilized as they got soaked and then cooled, but treeline and above remain dry snow and reactive avalanche conditions.
Treeline snowpack depths range from 60-140 cm.
The parade of storms continues.
Strong NW flow continues with another system crossing the area Tuesday night and Wednesday. We expect another 20 cm by Wednesday and another 10 on Thursday, accompanied by strong winds and freezing levels dropping over the next few days.
