Avalanche Forecast

Poor - Due to limited field observations for the entire period

Overnight and Saturday: Strong SE winds overnight are expected to ease to moderate with strong gusts during the day Saturday. Alpine temps should lower to about -9.0 and remain cool through Sunday. Expect 5-7 mm overnight and an additional 8-12 mm on Saturday.Sunday: High pressure is moving on to the coast, but it looks like it will remain mostly overcast with some convective snow showers. Winds are expected to switch to the NW and remain moderate with strong gusts.

Some touchy thin wind slabs 5-15 cms have been reported to be releasing in the new snow where it has been transported into a wind slab. Explosives control last weekend produced a couple of 30cm deep size 1.5-2 storm slab avalanches. Natural avalanche activity followed by human-triggered activity generally occurs with every intense weather period, such as what's forecast for Thursday night and Friday.

Total snowpack depth are probably close to a metre in most treeline areas and deeper but more variable in the alpine, while below treeline areas are probably still below threshold depths for avalanches. A recent profile at 1200m in the Shames area showed a predominately "right-side-up" 120cm deep snowpack with a thin layer of facets sitting on a crust 35cm off the ground. An Extended Column Test produced produced easy (10 taps)  results on this persistent weak layer , but the resistant fracture didn't propagate across the entire column. Check out the Skeena/Babine discussion forum for more information from the area.