Avalanche Forecast

Moderate - Timing or intensity of solar radiation is uncertain on Wednesday

We're looking at unsettled weather with cooling temperatures throughout the forecast period.WEDNESDAY: Mainly sunny with some cloudy periods. Moderate northwest winds 30-50 Km/hr. Freezing level to 1500 metres with alpine high temperatures around -5. THURSDAY: Cloudy with sunny periods and isolated flurries in the afternoon. Winds becoming light westerly. Freezing level dropping to 1200 metres with alpine high temperatures of -6.FRIDAY: Cloudy with scattered flurries (5cm possible). Light to moderate west winds. Freezing level 700 metres with alpine high temperatures around -7.

On Tuesday several natural size 1 wind slabs, storm slabs and dry loose were reported in steep terrain near Golden, mostly on immediate lee (down wind) slopes. Also on Tuesday, a dry loose avalanche stepped down to a deeper weak layer, resulting in a size 2 avalanche. This was on a north aspect near 2500m. On Monday, skiers were able to trigger several wind slabs to size 1.5 on steeper west aspects between 1900m and 2400m. Slabs averaged 25-45cm thickness and were not bonding well to the March 19th sun crust. Looking forward, fresh wind slabs will likely remain reactive to human triggering, especially on immediate down wind features. 

Some areas in the north of the region received up to 15 cm of new snow on Tuesday (most areas had only a trace). Winds were gusting strong from the south / west, building fresh wind slabs on down wind (lee) features. At tree line and above, most of the region's upper snowpack consists of a wind-affected 10-20 cm layer of snow. This sits on previous layers of storm snow that are separated by temperature and sun crusts at lower elevations and on south aspects. Surface hoar layers have been reported between these old storm snow layers on shaded aspects at higher elevations and can likely now be found at approximately 20 and 40 cm below the surface.New snow amounts taper quickly with elevation and below about 1900 m, reduced accumulations sit on a supportive crust on all aspects. Deeper persistent weak layers from mid-late February (down 40 -100 cm deep) as well as January and December layers are generally considered dormant, but could wake up with a surface avalanche stepping down, cornice fall, or a human trigger in a shallow or variable-depth snowpack area. These layers consist of sun crust, surface hoar and/or facets. Facets also linger at the base of the snowpack.