Some new snow and incoming wind will build fresh wind slabs on Tuesday. Following this, clear weather on Wednesday will activate said storm snow due to solar radiation and daytime warming.
Up to10cm of new snow with moderate to strong West wind by Tuesday end of day, will likely build new wind slabs in alpine lee areas. Track this at the local level as snow fall amounts and wind velocity can be variable.
The Feb 3 layer is down 60-120 cm. In shallow snowpack areas on northerly alpine aspects, this layer may still be sensitive to skiers, with remote triggering observed in a couple of instances last week. All recent avalanches that initiated on this Feb 3 layer stepped down to the basal facets/ground.
Sunshine patrol reported ski cutting some small size 1 wind slabs in immediate alpine lee areas. Otherwise, no new avalanches were observed or reported on Monday.
It has been a week since the last skier triggered avalanches on the Feb 3rd persistent weak layer occured. These involved a skier remote in Purple Bowl and a skier accidental at the Cathedral Glades.
New surface crusts on all solar aspects and up to 2500 m on north aspects are buried by a skiff of snow. On high north aspects 15-20 cm of recent storm snow remains dry with some wind effect near ridgecrests.
The February 3 persistent weak layer remains a concern for human triggering in shallow snowpack areas on northerly alpine aspects where no crusts are found in the upper snowpack and the midpack remains thin and weak.
5-10cm of snow is expected on Tuesday. It will be accompanied by cool-ish temperatures of close to 0 in the valley and -10 at the ridge level. There is a good chance the wind will blow strong from the West, but at minimum, it will be moderate.
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