Avalanche Forecast

Fair - Intensity of incoming weather is uncertain

Monday: Light snowfall. Moderate south-westerly winds. Freezing level near valley bottom. Tuesday: 5-10cm. Freezing level around 1000m, rising later in the day. Strong westerly winds. Wednesday: 15-20cm, with the freezing level rising as high as 2000m. Strong westerly flow.

Several natural and skier-triggered size 1 soft slabs were observed on Saturday. In uncompacted terrain, these were failing on the surface hoar interface buried in mid-December.

Up to 20cm of new snow is bonding poorly to the old surface. A surface hoar layer from mid-December around 30cm down is giving sudden test results. Avalanche activity on the mid-December buried surface hoar layer has increased in the South Columbia region over the last two days as critical amounts of snow have been reached. I expect to see this trend of rising avalanche occurrences and increased size/consequence reach the Kootenay Boundary region soon. In some parts of the region, it's probably already occurring. Soft and hard wind-slabs can be found on certain slopes in the alpine and around treeline. Facets at the base of the snowpack could create a deep persistent slab problem that deserves attention in shallow snowpack areas on planar rocky slopes.