Anyone planning to travel in avalanche terrain on Saturday would be best to start and finish very early, to avoid rapidly increasing hazard as the day heats up. Sunday/Monday offer more reasonable temperatures and stronger morning re-freezes.
Weather Forecast
Freezing Levels are forecast to remain in the alpine on Friday night, though mostly clear skies may allow a light refreeze of the snow surface. Expect sun Saturday morning, before moderate NE winds bring increasing cloud. Light showers turn to flurries early Sunday, as freezing levels drop to 1500m. Sun and rising freezing levels late Sun/Mon.
Snowpack Summary
The snowpack is isothermal in many areas, but will cool on Saturday night. Multiple buried crusts, although soft/wet, are keeping the snowpack supportive through the cooler parts of the day. The upper snowpack will be strong while frozen, but increasingly weak if temperatures rise above freezing, or during periods of strong sun.
Avalanche Summary
A few small (Size 1) Loose Wet avalanches were observed on Friday from steep terrain. New glide cracks are appearing almost daily, as the whole snowpack slumps downhill on certain slopes, though no glide avalanche releases have been noted yet.
Problems
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.
Wet Slabs
Wet Slab avalanches are the release of a cohesive layer of snow (a slab) that is generally moist or wet when the flow of liquid water weakens the bond between the slab and the surface below (snow or ground). They often occur during prolonged warming events and/or rain-on-snow events. Wet Slabs can be very unpredictable and destructive.