Weather Forecast
Wednesday: Mainly sunny, with freezing levels in valley bottoms and moderate northwesterly winds. Thursday: Increasing clouds with a chance of flurries in the evening. Freezing levels rising as high as 1500m, and moderate southerly winds. Friday: 5-10cm of snow, with freezing levels around 1200m, and moderate southwesterly winds.
Avalanche Summary
Fresh wind slabs and cornices are sensitive to human-triggers, but the ensuing avalanches are generally small.
Snowpack Summary
In alpine and exposed treeline areas fresh wind slabs are bonding poorly a variable but predominately crusty snow surface from last weekend's warm, wet, and windy weather. Buried surface hoar persists 10 or so centimetres below this crust on sheltered treeline slopes and below in the Duffy Lake area. Recent compression tests on a northerly aspect at 1750m produced easy sudden results where it was found down 20cm as large as 15mm. Check out the Forecaster's Blog link below for a discussion on incremental loading of potential persistent weak layers. The mid and lower snowpack are generally well settled and strong.
Problems
Wind Slabs
Wind Slab avalanches are the release of a cohesive layer of snow (a slab) formed by the wind. Wind typically transports snow from the upwind sides of terrain features and deposits snow on the downwind side. Wind slabs are often smooth and rounded and sometimes sound hollow, and can range from soft to hard. Wind slabs that form over a persistent weak layer (surface hoar, depth hoar, or near-surface facets) may be termed Persistent Slabs or may develop into Persistent Slabs.