South Rockies

Warming is coming! This significant change will weaken the snowpack. Forecasting the timing of changes over the next several days is difficult. However, it's easy to see it's time to reign in your terrain choices and stay clear of overhead hazards.

Moderate -

Significant warming in the forecast and next week looks very warm with freezing level above the summits. Don't let overnight cooling at low elevations fool you; very little cooling is expected at higher elevation.SATURDAY NIGHT: Clearing, alpine low temperature O to -5C, light southwest wind.SUNDAY: Sunny, with freezing level approaching 2200m, no overnight re-freeze expected. Light variable wind.MONDAY: Sunny with freezing level around 2500m, no overnight re-freeze expected. Light variable wind.TUESDAY: Sunny with freezing level around 2500m and alpine tempertures around +5C. Light variable wind.

Small dry loose, wet loose, and small windslabs up to size 2 continue to be observed in the region.On Thursday, a group of riders remotely triggered a size 1.5 persistent slab from 100 metres away. See the MIN report for more details. Although this occured in the neighbouring Lizard & Flathead region, I view it as an important piece of data when considering the effect of forecast strong sunshine and warming.

Moderate to strong southwest winds have affected the low density storm snow at and above treeline, building winds slabs near ridgetop and behind lee features. These fresh slabs overly old slab slabs in alpine terrain. The sun has transformed the recent 15-20 cm of storm snow which became moist on southerly aspects at lower elevations. The middle snowpack consists of weaker faceted snow with few if any distinct layers. In isolated wind protected locations a thin surface hoar layer from mid-January is 50-80 cm deep. The surface hoar is most prominent in the Elk Valley between 1600 m and 1900 m. Regardless of whether they are facets or surface hoar crystals, when the weather warms they may produce avalanches.