Avalanche Forecast

Good - The weather pattern is stable

A dry ridge of high pressure will maintain valley cloud and clear conditions in the alpine for Tuesday and Wednesday. On Thursday, however, the ridge is forecast to flatten out allowing for a pacific system to track eastward across the province. Light flurries are expected by late Thursday afternoon. Winds should be mostly light to moderate from the northwest, switching to moderate and southwesterly on Thursday. Freezing levels should remain at or near valley bottom, although a sharp inversion is forecast for Wednesday with above-freezing temperatures in the alpine.

On Saturday, skiers triggered numerous persistent slab avalanches to size 2 in the north of the region, in some cases remotely from a distance of 10m. On Sunday, a couple of persistent slab avalanches in the size 2.5 range were triggered between 2100 and 2300m from a distance of up to 100m.With the stable weather pattern, recent storm instabilities should become much less reactive; however, I would expect ongoing skier-triggered avalanche activity on the December persistent weak layers.

A dusting of low-density snow overlies well-developed surface hoar which sits above a melt-freeze crust. The crust is reported to exist on all aspects below about 1900m, and on steep solar aspects at higher elevations. Stubborn wind slabs are likely to exist in exposed alpine and treeline terrain. The main snowpack concern is a buried surface hoar layer (down 60-120 cm), which is sitting on a hard rain crust in some places. This widespread persistent weakness, which formed in December, exists at all elevation bands and remains a concern for triggering. Near the base of the snowpack, a facet/crust combo which formed in November has remained mostly dormant, although recent activity in the Bonnington Range suggests it may still be reactive in isolated terrain.