South Coast

A buried weak layer means tricky conditions will persist for several days. Make conservative terrain choices and have a safe holiday period.

Poor - Due to the number of field observations

A ridge of high pressure should keep the region dry for Thursday and Friday. On Thursday, expect mostly sunny conditions with freezing levels around 700m and light NW winds in the alpine. Friday is expected to start out sunny with increasing cloudiness during the day. Freezing levels should be around 500m and alpine winds should remain light. The next weak storm system is currently expected to arrive Friday night and persist through the weekend. Saturday may see 4-8mm of precipitation with freezing levels staying relatively low.

No new avalanches were reported on Tuesday. On Monday we received a report of storm slabs up to size 2.5 being remote-triggering from flat areas up to 75m away in the Coquihalla area between 1600 and 1900m elevation. Slabs were 40-70cm thick and were releasing on the crust/surface hoar layer. On Sunday, natural storm slab activity up to size 2 were reported at treeline and in the alpine. Natural activity is expected to drop off quickly but skier triggered slabs are likely to persist for several days.

The storm slab sits above the touchy mid-December surface hoar layer. In the north of the region the slab is around 30-40cm thick and in the south it is 50-80cm. The surface hoar appears to be quite reactive at treeline and possibly into the lower parts to the alpine, especially where it was sheltered from wind. About 10cm below the surface hoar layer is a thick rain crust the extends to around ridgetop elevation. Strong SW winds have created wind slabs in exposed alpine terrain.