South Columbia

Old wind slabs are still lurking and new snow plus winds are building new ones. Even small avalanches can have serious consequences if terrain traps are in the runout.

High -

SATURDAY: Cloudy with sunny periods and isolated flurries and trace amounts of fresh snow, light southeasterly winds, alpine temperature around -8.SUNDAY: Mainly cloudy with light flurries, light becoming moderate southwesterly winds and alpine temperatures around -10.MONDAY: Mainly cloudy with light snowfall bringing another 10 cm, strong southwesterly ridgetop winds and alpine temperatures hovering around -10.

Reports from the past few days include several relatively harmless skier-triggered thin wind slab avalanches on unsupported features and sluffing in steep terrain, but generally no new avalanches.

Surface hoar and facets are buried by 10-15 cm of fresh snow in most places. In exposed areas at all elevations, recent winds have resulted in scouring, hard wind slabs, and thicker reactive wind slabs in unusual places as the winds shifted from west to northeast. Southeasterly winds are likely keeping winds slabs fresh in some areas, while old wind slabs are breaking down with faceting in other areas. The mid-December facet/surface hoar persistent weakness can be found buried 70-120 cm deep is generally giving hard resistant or no results in snowpack tests. But we are still receiving occasional reports of sudden results, suggesting that it has to potential to propagate into a large avalanche if triggered, particularly where it is shallower. The lower snowpack is well bonded and features a thick rain crust near the ground.