Recent wind effect has been extensive. Avalanches are most likely to fail on steep westerly through southerly wind-affected slopes near ridgetops.
Recent strong to extreme easterly winds have built potentially reactive wind slabs on leeward slopes. These slabs may also be poorly bonded to an underlying crust.
Wind slabs have formed on many lee slopes. Expect to find sastrugi and hard wind-scoured surfaces in all open wind-exposed areas at upper elevations.
A rain crust from early November is likely buried 30 to 50 cm deep and may be poorly bonded to overlying wind slabs.
Alpine snow depths vary across the region, but are roughly 100 cm west of Smithers and 50 cm to the east. Snowpack information for the Kispiox region north of Hazelton is extremely limited.
A few large (size 2) wind slab avalanches were reported last week. We suspect due to recent and forecast wind, that wind slabs will remain reactive to human triggering over the next few days.
Early season reports have been extremely limited. Please consider submitting your observations to the Mountain Information Network.
Thursday night
Overcast. 20 km/h east wind. Treeline temperature low -12 °C.
Friday
Mostly sunny. 40 to 60 km/h east wind. Treeline temperature high -8 °C.
Saturday
Cloudy with 2 to 4 cm of snow. 30 to 50 km/h east wind. Treeline temperature high -11 °C.
Sunday
Mostly sunny. 30 to 40 km/h east wind. Treeline temperature high -10 °C.
More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.
