Look up! If cornices threaten your route adjust your plan. Cornice failures are hard to predict and are the likely trigger for very large avalanches. Although sporadic, these avalanches have been very destructive.
Weather Forecast
Today freezing levels will be around 2000m with flurries in the alpine and rain at treeline and below. Overnight freezing levels will drop and provide a weak overnight recovery. On Fri, freezing levels will rise back up to 1800m with up to 20cm expected in the alpine, and rain at lower elevations. Sat flurries continue with freezing levels at 1400m
Snowpack Summary
~30cm soft slab sits on a crust that exists everywhere other than N aspects above 1800m. Below 1900m this slab is being saturated by rain. The upper snowpack is a complex mix of crusts and spotty surface hoar layers. Deeper in the snowpack, old persistent weak layers that include crusts and facets have been reactive to large triggers like cornices
Avalanche Summary
High elevation N aspects hold dry snow that sluffs easily with skier traffic. Natural avalanche activity has been sporadic, but very large avalanches continue to be reported in the region daily. Cornices or smaller avalanches have been triggering deep persistent layers. At lower elevations, wet snow on crusts are expected to be reactive.
Confidence
Timing of incoming weather systems is uncertain
Problems
Persistent Slabs
Persistent Slab avalanches are the release of a cohesive layer of snow (a slab) in the middle to upper snowpack, when the bond to an underlying persistent weak layer breaks. Persistent layers include: surface hoar, depth hoar, near-surface facets, or faceted snow. Persistent weak layers can continue to produce avalanches for days, weeks or even months, making them especially dangerous and tricky. As additional snow and wind events build a thicker slab on top of the persistent weak layer, this avalanche problem may develop into a Deep Persistent Slab.
Cornices
Cornice Fall is the release of an overhanging mass of snow that forms as the wind moves snow over a sharp terrain feature, such as a ridge, and deposits snow on the downwind (leeward) side. Cornices range in size from small wind drifts of soft snow to large overhangs of hard snow that are 30 feet (10 meters) or taller. They can break off the terrain suddenly and pull back onto the ridge top and catch people by surprise even on the flat ground above the slope. Even small cornices can have enough mass to be destructive and deadly. Cornice Fall can entrain loose surface snow or trigger slab avalanches.
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.