North Columbia

Moderate -

TUESDAY NIGHT: Flurries, accumulating 5-20 cm new snow.Moderate southwest wind. Freezing level 1000 m.WEDNESDAY: Flurries, 5-10 cm new snow.Moderate southwest wind. Freezing level around 1200 m.THURSDAY: Snow, accumulating 20-30 cm, increasing through the day. Moderate southwest wind gusting strong. Freezing level around 1300 m.FRIDAY: Cloudy with isolated flurries, up to 5 cm.Moderate west wind gusting strong. Freezing level dropping to valley bottom.

Avalanche activity continues in the North Columbia region. On Friday, natural and explosives triggered avalanches up to size 3, and human triggered avalanches to size 2.5 were reported. Notably, several of these avalanches were triggered from a distance (remote triggered). On Saturday, explosives triggered avalanches to size 3.5, and natural and human triggered avalanches to size 2 were reported. Most recently, several natural avalanches to size 3.5 have been reported around the region.On Friday, a very large (size 3-4) natural avalanche was reported to have run full path, burying a road under several metres of debris on the west side of Kinbasket Lake. This avalanche occurred in the northern reaches of the North Columbia region, close to the boundary of the Cariboo region. These full path avalanches can catch people by surprise, especially when there is very little snow in the valley bottoms. A report of this avalanche can be found on the Mountain Information Network. here

Up to 20 cm very recent snow brings storm totals to 60-100 cm over the last week or so. The storm snow buried a a weak layer of facets (sugary snow), surface hoar (feathery crystals), and a sun crust (on south facing slopes). Strong winds have promoted widespread slab formation, particularly with the most recent new snow available for transport.A weak layer from mid November is now buried up to 150 cm and consists of surface hoar and a sun crust. The potential may exist for smaller avalanches to step down and trigger this deeper layer, resulting in large avalanches. The most likely place for this layer to be a problem is on steep, south facing slopes at treeline where the surface hoar sits on the sun crust.At the base of the snowpack is a crust that formed in late October. Concern for this layer is dwindling but it may still be worth considering in places such as steep, rocky, alpine terrain, especially where the snowpack is shallow. It would likely take a large trigger such as a cornice fall to produce an avalanche on this layer.