Crested Butte Avalanche Center

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Reported Sunday, February 5, 2012 at 6:45 AM

	Weather Forecast Today: Partly cloudy, 0-2" snow, south winds 5-15 mph and a high near 25. Tonight: Mostly cloudy, 1-3", south winds 5-15 mph and a low near 5. Tomorrow: Mostly cloudy, 0-2", west southwest winds 5-15 mph and a high near 22.

A closed low wobbling around the Rockies will feebly attempt to spin moisture through Colorado for the next 24 hours. The result for our corner of the Elk Mountains will be areas of cloudy skies and a chance of snow today and into tomorrow. We could see some convective showers with locally higher accumulations in the high-country, but we are looking at picking up a few inches at best. Winds shift to the northwest on Tuesday and set us up for a mostly dry week.

Time and warm temperatures are helping the upper snowpack settle into a cohesive slab but the lower snowpack still remains very weak. This is causing our snowpack to feel deceptively stable on most aspects. All it takes is 30 seconds to hop off your skis and post-hole through the "stronger" snow to observe the weaker underlying snowpack structure. Shady northwest through east aspects below treeline have the most pronounced strong over weak layering where January storm snow rests entirely on weak facets. Many near and above treeline wind-loaded slopes that face north through east and around to the south have stacks of wind slabs piled up on crusts and facets. The likelihood of triggering an avalanche is slowly decreasing but the consequences remain very severe: if you do trigger an avalanche, chances are it will be large and destructive.

The avalanche danger is MODERATE (Level 2) on all aspects and elevations.

LIKELIHOOD OF TRIGGERING

AVALANCHE SIZE

Trend

Persistent slabs are resting on weak faceted snow and crusts throughout the backcountry. While signs of instability may be decreasing, it remains very possible to trigger these slabs on steeper slopes. Expect triggered avalanches to be large and consequential today and into the next week.

We are dealing with "Scary Moderate" avalanche danger. It has been almost a week since the last reported human triggered slide, but it remains possible to trigger a large and destructive avalanche today. Be extra cautious around all terrain steeper than 35 degrees and expect previously wind loaded slopes to be extremely variable. Don't assume that any slope is safe just because there are already tracks down it.

John MacKinnon