Northwest Coastal

Good - -1

Saturday: Should stay dry with clouds and light winds that will pick up in the afternoon. Freezing level around 900 m. Overnight Saturday: light precipitation with 5-10 mm expected. Strong southerly winds. Sunday: Lingering flurries, otherwise dry with high pressure building. Freezing level around 700 m. Monday: Dry and sunny. Light winds.

Isolated cornice releases have been reported from this region that have mostly not triggered a slab on the slope below. One that did pull a slab was from Monday or Tuesday this week, and was suspected to have released down to the Jan-20 facet layer.

Approximately 5 cm of new snow at treeline and above has buried a surface hoar layer (crystal size reported to be 1-4 mm) lying on old surfaces comprising crusts and variable wind slabs. The crusts formed in response to successive melt-freeze cycles and are harder and thicker the lower in elevation you go. The wind slabs were deposited on a variety of aspects and are becoming increasingly stubborn and difficult to trigger. Deeper within the snowpack, a facet layer buried around Jan 20th is the greatest concern. This layer lies approximately 110-140 cm below the surface and still exhibits hard, sudden planar results in isolated snowpack tests. Avalanches have occasionally been failing on this layer with large triggers such as cornices.