Avalanche Forecast

Good

Saturday: A mix of sun and cloud with a chance of flurries close to the coast. Freezing level is at valley bottom with alpine temperatures around -10. Winds are light from the north-northwest. Sunday: A mix of sun and cloud. Freezing level remains at valley bottom. Winds are light to moderate from the north. Monday: A mix of sun and cloud. Alpine temperatures should rise during the day with an above freezing layer developing. Winds are moderate from the north. 

There are a few reports of accidentally triggered slab avalanches up to size 2 on Thursday. A widespread natural avalanche cycle was observed on Wednesday with numerous slab avalanches up to size 2 and a few larger events up to size 3.

A dusting of up to 15 cm of new  snow sits on the 40-60 cm of snow that fell earlier this week. Northerly outflow winds have created thin new wind slabs in exposed terrain, while older wind slabs still exist from the previous storm. Below the storm snow is a weak layer of surface hoar, facetted snow, and/or a crust. Snowpack tests on Wednesday continued to yield easy to moderate sudden planar, or "pops", results on this interface. No significant weaknesses have been reported recently below this in the mid snowpack layers. Near the base of the snowpack, a crust/facet layer exists, which is now unlikely to be triggered, except perhaps by heavy triggers in steep, shallow, rocky terrain where more facetting has taken place.