South Coast

Rapid cooling should help stabilize the snowpack and lower the avalanche danger heading into the weekend. However, we could see new issues arise if we see decent snowfall on Friday (mainly Cascades).

Poor - Due to the number of field observations

Friday: Temperatures start to plummet early with freezing levels dropping to 500 m by mid-day. We could see a good pulse of snow (10-20 cm), mainly in the Cascades. Ridge winds ease. Saturday: Mainly sunny. The freezing level is at valley bottom. Winds are light to moderate from the NE. Sunday: Sun and cloud. The freezing level remains at valley bottom. Winds are light from the W-NW.

A size 2 slab avalanche was observed off the east side of Joffre Peak in the Duffy Lake area on Wednesday morning. This slide triggered several loose wet sluffs lower on the slope that ran quite far. The observer also reported several older crowns from alpine terrain that probably release overnight or early that morning. Please let us know what you're seeing out there at [email protected].

There are few actual observations from the region to start the season. This is based mostly off weather station data and the weather forecast. 40-60 cm of snow fell by early Wednesday morning but temperatures rapidly spiked resulting in rain to around 2000 m. Higher elevations may have continued to see wet snow accumulate. As temperatures start to drop on Friday we could see a dusting of fresh snow (or even 10-20 cm) on top of a new rain crust. A weak layer of facetted snow on a crust may be lurking deeper in the snowpack. However, it's possible this weakness was 'flushed' out with the recent heavy precipitation. There's limited recent info on this weakness so I recommend digging to confirm the existence of the layer, its depth, and to test its strength.