It's going to be all freeze and no melt with light snow and cold temperatures over the next few days. Watch locally in the high alpine for wind slabs formed by north winds in isolated, but possibly atypical places.
Recent northerly winds have formed wind slabs up to 25 cm thick. In some locations, they are reactive to ski cuts on a firm melt-freeze crust. Watch for unusual loading patterns. Avalanches are small but could knock you off your feet with little chance to self-arrest on the hard underlying crust.
No new avalanches were observed or reported on Friday.
5-15 cm of dry snow fell on Wed night and sits over melt-freeze crusts in most locations, except north-facing slopes above 2600 m. The potential exists for some isolated windslabs in strange places from the north winds (reverse loading). On solar aspects, a crust extends to the ridgetop with 5-10 cm of drifted snow on top. The cooling trend will produce a widespread surface crust that will lock in the snowpack everywhere except on high north-facing terrain.
A cool airmass remains over our area for the weekend. A warmup begins early next week.
For Saturday and Sunday, expect isolated flurries with accumulations of just a few centimetres. Locally deeper amounts are possible due to spring convection.
Treeline temperatures will remain cool (-5 to -10), and the wind will be out of the north.
