Good time to avoid all avalanche terrain and head to a local resort.
Give the new snow time to settle and bond.
A Special Public Avalanche Warning is in effect. Click the red SPAW link for details.
Failures within the recent snow including windslabs, and storm slabs from rapid settlement have been observed in all elevations. Open areas below treeline where the new now is settling should be carefully evaluated.
New snow is overloading the Feb 3rd persistent layer interface that developed in the warm spell in early February.
Avalanche may step down to the weeker deep basal layers.
Observations were limited due to the weather but we were able to see one size 2.5 avalanche on a NE aspects on Little Tent Ridge that had a 200m wide propagation. The suspected failure plane is the Feb 3rd Crust. We suspect that a natural cycle is still ongoing.
55-85cm of recent snow is now overlying the Feb 3rd crust complex. Storm slabs and wind slabs can be expected in this new snow which will be easy to trigger with a skiers weight. A weak layer of facetted crystals also exists above and below this crust that has been producing moderate sheers. This new snow is beginning to overload this layer and cause a natural avalanche cycle. The November basal facets are alive and well and back on our radar as the February 2 rain crust is deteriorating and not locking in the weaknesses below as it once did. Skier weight has now been able to break through the Feb 2 rain crust in some places, which means that the basal facets can now be more easily affected.
This is a good time to avoid all avalanche terrain
Light snow will continue overnight with accumulations of around 5cm snow. Winds are forecast to become more easterly overnight with peak speeds around 40km/hr. A grey-bird day is in store again with not much in the way of sun and temperatures around -15C.
More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.
