South Coast

Spring Conditions. Record breaking warm weather continues. Expect the likelihood of wet slab avalanches, cornice falls, and loose wet avalanches to increase during the heat of the day.

Clear overnight with light southwest winds and freezing levels around 2000 metres. Clear and sunny on Wednesday with light winds and daytime freezing up to 3500 metres. Thin high cloud developing on Thursday morning with light southwest winds and freezing levels climbing to 3000 metres during the day. Cloudy with convective showers and snow flurries on Friday and the freezing level at 2500 metres.

No new avalanches reported. Most commercial operations in the region have finished their season and data is sparse.

Cornices are large, fragile, and could trigger deep slab avalanches that run to valley bottoms. Monitoring the overnight freeze of the snow surface is very important.. If the snow surface does not freeze overnight or if the crust is only a few cm thick, the effect of daytime heating and solar radiation will weaken the snowpack much quicker. There is an old crust layer down approximately 50cm in the Duffey area and north of Pemberton. Though mostly dormant, it produced a couple large avalanches during the last major warming event. The forecast hottest weather of the year to date could again test it, especially in isolated locations such as steep, rocky faces. Glide cracks are widespread, active, and best avoided. Low elevation and thin snowpack areas have become isothermal, meaning the snowpack is 0 degrees Celsius throughout. An isothermal snowpack is more prone to full depth wet slab avalanches during the heat of the day, especially on steep, smooth slopes.