Cooling temperatures and strong winds are the story for Sunday. Expect danger to increase over the day as snow is redistributed into reactive new wind slabs. This is expected to occur in exposed areas at all elevations.
Recent strong and variable winds have been redistributing storm snow into touchier wind slabs at all elevations and on most aspects. Fresher, touchier slabs are expected to form on south through west aspects as a result of forecast northeasterly outflow winds.
Saturday night: Clearing. Light northwest winds shifting northeast and increasing.
Sunday: Sunny. Moderate to strong northeast winds, increasing over the day. Alpine high temperatures around -22.
Monday: Sunny. Light to moderate northeast winds. Alpine temperatures around -25.
Tuesday: Sunny. Light to moderate northeast winds. Alpine temperatures around -24.
Active avalanche conditions existed throughout the region on Friday, however visibility limited observations. Rapid loading from snowfall and wind resulted in natural avalanche activity focused toward higher elevations exposed to strong winds.
Looking forward, wind redistributed snow from Friday's storm will remain our primary concern. Under forecast cool temperatures, sheltered snow may continue to react to human triggers as dry loose sluffs. Greater danger should be expected in exposed areas where winds have created deeper and more reactive slabs.
40-60 cm of new snow accumulated over the region on Friday. The new snow mainly buried wind-affected surfaces at alpine and upper treeline elevations. It may cover a new layer of surface hoar at lower elevations and in sheltered areas or a thin sun crust on steeper south-facing slopes.
Below the new snow interface, 80-100 cm of older storm snow, also wind affected, has been forming a strengthening bond with an underlying crust up to treeline and yet another array of wind affected surfaces at higher elevations.
Below these layers the snowpack is generally well consolidated. Two older layers of surface hoar are now buried 130-180 cm deep. The recent storm cycle was a good test of these layers, with no reports of avalanches stepping down to them.
