Northwest Coastal

Careful consideration to temperatures, accumulation, and exposure to avalanche terrain is necessary for safe travel now !

Fair - Intensity of incoming weather systems is uncertain

Precipitation  and strong winds will continue through Friday and are forecast to end on early Saturday morning.  Skies should clear on Saturday and begin to dry out the forecast region.  Freezing levels will stay around the 1500M mark , but drop to around 500m on Saturday.For more information check out the Mountain Weather Forecast at: https://avalanche.ca/weather

There was no avalanche activity reported in the region yesterday, but this may be a case of poor weather and limited observations.  Size 1 skier triggered wind slabs have been previously reported in high elevation lee terrain.

This storm system accompanied by strong southwest winds will build dense slabs on exposed lee features, adding additional load to the previous storm slab. There are a variety of old  buried interfaces that include hard wind slabs, hard crusts, surface hoar, and/or surface facets. The lack of large recent avalanches suggest a reasonable bonds at these interfaces, but we should remain cautious of steeper, high-consequence slopes, as a release on  any of these  buried layers could be large and destructive . At the base of the snowpack, weak facets may be found, particularly on shallow alpine slopes in the north of the region. Cornices are becoming large and potentially unstable.