Northwest Coastal

Good - -1

Tuesday: Dry with some good periods of sunshine. Freezing level around 600 m. Winds light north-easterly. Wednesday: Starting off clear but clouds developing mid-morning. Light snowfall, with amounts around 3 cm expected. Moderate southwest winds. Thursday: Another weak frontal system moves in bringing 5-10 cm new snow and elevating freezing levels to around 1100 m.

Slab avalanches initiating from ski cuts have been reported up to size 1.5 on steep, wind effected alpine ridges on eastern aspects. Sluffing of new snow in steep terrain has also been reported.

Strong overnight south-westerlies in areas close to the coast have redistributed the small amount of new snow into isolated pockets of wind slab behind terrain features in the alpine. Approximately 5-10 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.