A stable weather pattern is the forecast for the next few days. Watch for fresh wind slabs in the lee of terrain features. Cornices have grown large and seem to be particularly fragile right now.
Recent snowfall combined with elevated and shifting winds will build new wind slabs. Be mindful of areas where wind slab and cornice distribution overlap.
Saturday Night: Cloudy with clear periods. Light northwest wind. Alpine high temperatures around -10.
Sunday: Mainly cloudy with sunny breaks. Light to moderate northwest wind. Alpine high temperatures around -8.
Monday: A mix of sun and cloud. Light northwest winds. Alpine high temperatures around -6.
Tuesday: Scattered flurries. Light to moderate west winds. Alpine high temperatures around -5.
Thursday and Friday's reports showed loose dry size 1-1.5 avalanches running naturally from steep slopes facing the sun and a few small (size 1) wind slabs triggered with ski cutting and skier traffic on steeper rolls and ridgetop features.
With continuous stormy weather over the past week, there have been a handful of very large (size 3-4) avalanches breaking on deeply buried weak layers on slopes above 2000 m. Although the likelihood is low, large wind slab avalanches or large cornice fall may have the potential to step down to these layers.
30-60 cm of snow from the last week now overlies older wind-affected snow at high elevations, with about half this amount instead overlying a widespread melt-freeze or rain crust to a variable upper extent of 1700-2400 metres in elevation.
The mid and lower snowpack are generally well settled and strong. Although isolated, there are two deeper weak layers that may persist in some areas. A weak layer of surface hoar buried 90 to 170 cm deep may be found across the north of the region while a facet/crust layer from November may be found near the ground in shallower snowpack areas.
