Gusty convective cells in the Spring-time create highly variable conditions from one valley to the next. One valley may be wind-hammered with no good travel left, while the next bowl over sports excellent boot-top powder.
Pay attention to changing conditions as you move through different aspects and elevation bands.
New snow and gusty winds will load leeward slopes in wind-exposed terrain. Expect this problem to be most reactive in ridge top features. If triggered, these avalanches may travel farther and faster than expected on a buried crust.
No new avalanche observations.
Natural avalanches up to size 2.5 through the highway corridor on Tuesday-Thursday.
A widespread, natural avalanche cycle occurred up to size 4.0 on Mar 19-20 during the atmospheric river. Check out pics from the recent mega avalanche cycle in the MIN Reports. It shows some of the huge debris piles that are making travel challenging.
15-50cm of recent storm snow has been redistributed by SW winds, creating wind slabs in exposed terrain. Travel is challenging below treeline with frozen tree bombs and huge avalanche debris from last week's super storm.
Below the storm snow, a strong crust exists up into treeline. Another crust from early March is down 70-150cm.
The Jan 26 surface hoar layer is now buried 150-210cm deep. This layer is not a concern for human triggering with bridging crusts above.
Sun and cloud with isolated flurries.
Tonight Scattered flurries. 5cm. Alpine low -13°C. Ridge wind W 15-35km/h. Freezing level (FZL) valley bottom.
Mon Mix of sun and clouds. Trace precipitation. High -11°C. Wind W 15-30km/h. FZL 800m.
Tues Cloudy with sunny periods. High -5°C. Wind S 10-30km/h. FZL 1500m.
Wed Cloudy, scattered flurries. 5cm. High -2°C. Wind SE 10-30km/h. FZL 1800m.
