Snow amounts of 6-10" and strong winds will enter the Silver Valley Zone late Tuesday morning. Anticipate the development of small wind slabs near ridgelines on north and east aspects by Tuesday afternoon. These slabs will become thicker and more easily triggered by Wednesday morning, human triggered avalanches will be likely in steep, wind-loaded terrain on Wednesday. Pay attention to surface conditions today and seek out more sheltered terrain if you begin to see signs of slab development.
On Monday we observed evidence of recent wind loading on north east aspects and some scouring on terrain exposed to the south-westerly winds. None of the loaded terrain was particularly concerning Monday. Today we will see the winds pick up and accompanied by fresh snow, wind slabs will be a growing concern by Wednesday morning on north-east aspects at Treeline and above.
Within the upper 3 feet of the snowpack we have multiple crust layers present. We are seeing facets above and below these crust layers that likely developed during our last arctic cold front (January 28th through the 31st). The sensitivity of these weak layers varies widely with aspect and elevation. Stability tests performed Monday ranged from no results, to propagation with hard force and clean snappy shears produced. Under our current and predicted temperatures these facets will continue to trend towards a stronger state, but it will take time to fully heal. Triggering an avalanche on these weak layers is a "low likelihood-high consequence" scenario, your potential to trigger one of these weak layers will be highest in steep and open terrain with convex roll-overs.
Get in a Level 1 course this season! Spaces are still available.There is still time to get your Avalanche Level 1 training this season with Friends of IPAC! We currently have spaces available for courses on Feb 18-19 at Silver Mountain or March 4-5 at Schweitzer.
