10cm of snow is forecast for Saturday with moderate SW winds. If snow amount are more than anticipated, we may see the avalanche danger return to high. Treat the snowpack as suspect at this time and continue to be very conservative in your terrain choice avoiding any bigger terrain that hasn't slid in this latest cycle.
Windslabs will develop with the incoming snow and winds. Watch for this problem in more open wind affected terrain and specific areas at treeline.
This sits upon weak faceted crystals, sun crust or a dense layer that are perfect for slab avalanches. There is potential for this layer to re-load and avalanche again if enough snow falls over the next few days.
This layer has been very active lately. It may not tolerate any new loading, especially if the overlying snow retains the heat from today. Treat any areas that have not slid as suspect.
No new natural avalanches were observed or reported on Friday.
Temperatures cooled on Friday which has helped the snowpack settle and strengthen (albeit only slightly). 5-10cm of new snow fell what is now overlying the March 28th melt freeze layer that is found on all aspects up tp 2400m (treeline) and all other aspects except true north to ridgetop.
The upper snowpack settled rapidly last week in the warmer temperatures triggering a widespread avalanche cycle on with many slides failing do the basal facet/depth hoar layers. As temperatures cool, it will become harder to trigger these deeper layers but the weak interface still exists and can be triggered by light loads such as a skier. New windslabs are also developing in alpine terrain with the new snow and moderate south west winds
The danger is dropping as the Natural cycle decreases but human triggered avalanches remain likely and we encourage skiers to stick to conservative terrain
10-20cm of new snow is forecast over the next 24 hours with light-moderate westerly winds and a day time high around -1C and a freezing level forecast to be 1800m.
More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.
