Warm temperatures and spring sunshine will increase the avalanche hazard as the day heats up, reduce your exposure to sunny slopes accordingly.
North facing slopes still hold dry snow and good skiing.
Mature cornices may become reactive with the high freezing levels and large diurnal temperature swings. Be aware of your overhead hazard and avoid exposure.
Wet loose avalanches are likely in steep terrain during the heat of the day. These may start small but can quickly gather surprising mass enough to push you down slope and into a terrain trap.
With little or no overnight refreezing, warm temperatures and strong spring sunshine the upper snowpack is warming up and loosing strength. On smooth sun exposed slopes this may fail as wet slabs sliding easily on the strong crust below.
Sunshine and warm temperatures triggered a small loose wet avalanche cycle from steep terrain over the weekend.
Near neighbors have been reporting cornice failures this week, both natural and explosive triggered.
A widespread, natural avalanche cycle occurred up to size 4.0 on Mar 19-20 during the atmospheric river. Check out pics from this exceptional avalanche cycle in the MIN Reports.
Depending on the time of day you will find a widespread crust or wet snow on sunny slopes while shaded northerly slopes still hold settled dry snow.
A series of crusts formed in March are present down 50-150 cm.
Travel can be challenging below treeline with frozen tree bombs and huge avalanche debris from the mid-March atmospheric river.
Warm spring weather with a brief cool down on Tuesday.
Tonight Clear periods, no precip. Alpine low 2°C. Winds SE light. Freezing level (FZL) 1500m.
Mon Cloudy with isolated showers. Alp High 5°C. Wind SW 25 gusting to 90km/h. FZL 2600m.
Tues Flurries, 8cm. High -1°C low -10°C. Wind W 25 gusting to 75km/h. FZL 1800m.
Wed Mix of sun & cloud with isolated flurries. Alpine high -1°C. FZL 1900m
