South Coast

New snow may take some time to stabilise. Sunny periods may weaken the slab where it is sitting on a buried crust.

Fair - Timing or intensity of solar radiation is uncertain on Thursday

Overnight and Thursday: Becoming overcast this evening with a chance of some convective flurries. Light Easterly winds overnight and during the day. Freezing levels dropping down to 600 metres overnight and rising up to 1300 metres during the day. Some chance of sunny periods in the afternoon.Friday: Overcast with snow starting in the morning and becoming heavy snow fall in the afternoon. Building Southwest winds becoming strong by the afternoon. Freezing levels rising up to about 1500 metres.Saturday: Snow and Southwest wind continuing. Freezing level rising to about 1700 metres.

No new reports of avalanches. I suspect that there was a natural avalanche cycle in the new snow today. New snow or storm slab avalanches in motion may trigger the deeply buried persistent weak layers.

20-30 cm of new snow overnight has added to the load of recent storm snow. The storm slab is sitting on a mix of melt-freeze crusts on solar aspects and well settled snow, surface facets, and surface hoar on shaded aspects above 1500 metres. The persistent weak layers from early March and early February continue to be a concern. The March weak layer of wind-scoured crusts, melt-freeze crusts, and/or surface hoar is reported to be down 70-80 cm. The February crust/facet/surface hoar layer is now deeply buried down 150-250 cm and may still be triggered by heavy loads like cornice falls or storm slab avalanches in motion. Long fracture propagations resulting in very large avalanches are possible with this layer. Avalanches releasing on these layers may step down to the ground during periods of strong solar radiation or warm spring rain.