"CONTINUED HIGH AVALANCHE HAZARD"
Avoid all avalanche terrain. Up to 50cm of storm snow has fallen. Strong to extreme winds have created widespread wind slabs at treeline and above. There is also a strong likelyhood of triggereing deeper weaknesses in the snowpack, thus creating very large avalanches.
This wind slab problem covers two wind slab problems. 50cm of storm snow is being re-distributed into a surface wind slab. If this is triggered, there is a strong likelyhood to trigger a recently buried wind slab that is up to 100cm deep
Avalanches initiated in the surface wind slab could trigger this deeper instability. Large and destructive avalanches are possible.
Rapid loading from the recent storm along with incoming snow will lead to widespread sluffing.
A natural avalanche cycle continues with this storm. Explosives control work on EEOR on Tuesday also produced several size 2 avalanches.
Lots is going on in the snowpack. From Tuesday night to Wednesday afternoon, we received upwards of 40cm of storm snow. Associated with this storm were extreme west winds that have created widespread wind slabs at treeline and above. Additional snow and continued strong West winds will only create a thicker wind slab on the surface. We also have a another buried slab approximately 70-100cm down that is sitting on a softer layer of decomposed particles that was reactive to field tests 2 days ago. The November crust can now be found 100-120cm down. At the moment, if any of these weaknesses are triggered, there is a strong likelyhood that deeper instabilities will fail creating very large avalanches.
We have received 40cm of storm snow. The extreme Westerly winds will diminish to strong on Wednesday evening and stay there for the entire day on Thurday. An additional 10cm of snow is expected by Thursday afternoon. The temperatures in the Alpine will stay between -7c and -15c.
More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.
