Avalanche Forecast

Moderate - The weather pattern is stable

We're into a fairly stable weather pattern: seasonal temperatures and isolated flurries. SUNDAY: Cloudy with light flurries (2-5cm possible), light southerly winds and freezing levels around 1200 m.MONDAY: Cloudy with light flurries, local accumulations 5-10cm, light to moderate southwesterly winds and freezing levels around 1300 m.TUESDAY: A mix of sun and cloud with light snow flurries starting in the evening, light winds and freezing levels around 1200 m.

Reports from Thursday and Friday morning include natural and skier triggered 15-60 cm thick storm and wind slab avalanches up to Size 2. One skier-triggered storm slab stepped down to facets buried early February down 70 cm. Other reports from Friday include natural wet loose avalanche activity up to Size 2.5 at lower elevations, including solar (south) aspects. Touchy new storm slabs (think northerly aspects in the alpine) are sensitive to light triggers and have the potential to step down and trigger persistent slab avalanches.

At higher elevations expect to find 25-40 cm of fresh snow bonding poorly to buried surface hoar and/or a crust, and blown into deep wind slabs near ridge crests. Below 1600m the moist snow has frozen to give a breakable (10cm thick in places) crust: Not much fun riding I'm afraid. Rapidly settling storm snow from last week is still bonding poorly to the previous snow surface from early February, which is now down 60-90 cm and includes a sun crust on steep sun-exposed slopes, faceted snow, as well as surface hoar on sheltered open slopes. The mid and lower snowpack are generally well settled and stable in deeper snowpack areas but may be faceted and weaker in shallower areas. The mid-December surface hoar/facet persistent weakness can now be found down roughly 150 cm. It has become inactive in the south of the region, but may still be lingering in the northern part of the region near Blue River and Valemount.