Pay close attention to temperatures on Sunday. If the cooling trend that is forecast doesn't arrive, we can expect the conditions to remain at considerable.
If triggered the persistent slab is very likely to steep down to the deeper instability and involve the entire winter's snowpack. Pay close attention at treeline where this layer is more commonly found.
As the temperature cools this layer will get harder to trigger. Pay close attention to the freezing level and temps as you travel on sunday.
One sz 2 slab was observed on the SE aspect of heros know at 2100m. The warm temps was the suspected trigger.
The freezing level on Saturday was around 2100m with moist surface snow below this elevation. In the valley floor, the top 20cm of snow was moist by 1300. So its fair to say over the next few days with the temps dropping we will have a crust forming up to 2100m. Above 2100m the snowpack isnt changing too much. Two main layers are our concern, the December 17th and the basal facets. In field tests on Saturday moderate results were still occurring on both layers. The main concern was the sudden collapse nature of the deep facets. While the midpack is gaining strength, the deeper weak layers of facets and depth hoar is still triggerrable. This is especially true from thinner snowpack areas. Any avalanche triggerred is likely to involve the entire snowpack.
Temperatures will begin cooling overnight with freezing levels dropping back down towards the valley floor. Winds will remain light but unfortunately precip will also remain light. We are not seeing any significant accumulations in snowfall over the next week.
More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.
