There is uncertainty with the speed of recovery of the snowpack. Maintain conservative terrain choices.
Convective flurries will be accompanied by moderate southwest wind redistributing storm snow in the alpine and treeline, developing wind slabs directly lee of high points and ridges.
Where a melt-freeze crust has developed, this layer will become more difficult to trigger. With uncertain freezing levels, melt-freeze crust development could be spotty.
On Wednesday, numerous natural wet loose avalanches were observed to size 2.
Large natural persistent slab avalanches have run on buried weak layers in recent days. A size 3 was observed near Castle on Wednesday, and the Field Team reported a size 2.5 in the Crowsnest area on Wednesday.
Read the Forecaster Blog for an opportunity to reflect on this week's widespread avalanche activity.
Roughly 5 to 10 cm of storm snow will bury a breakable surface crust that can be found on most aspects and elevations, which becomes more supportive as you gain elevation.
The upper snowpack remains moist over a generally settled mid-pack that sits on a persistent weak layer of surface hoar or facets from late January buried 70 to 120 cm deep.
Thursday Night
Mostly cloudy with isolated flurries, 2 to 3 cm. 20 to 30 km/h southwest ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -2 °C. Freezing level falling to 1300 m.
Friday
Cloudy with scattered flurries, 5 to 8 cm. 20 to 30 km/h southwest ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -2 °C. Freezing level 1500 m.
Saturday
Mostly cloudy with isolated flurries,1 to 2 cm. 10 to 20 km/h southwest ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature 0 °C. Freezing level 2000 m.
Sunday
Partly cloudy with isolated flurries. 1 to 2 cm. 10 to 20 km/h variable wind. Treeline temperatures 0 °C. Freezing level 2000 m.
More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.
