Regions
Northwest Inland.
This is a good time to avoid avalanche terrain.
Weather Forecast
Monday night: Clear. Light to moderate south winds. Freezing levels remaining near 3200 metres.Tuesday: Sunny with a chance of valley cloud. Light south winds. Aline high temperatures around +5 with freezing levels of 3000 metres, remaining steady overnight.Wednesday: Mainly sunny with a chance of valley cloud. Light east or southeast winds. Alpine high temperatures around +5 with freezing levels around 2800 metres, lowering a bit overnight.Thursday: A mix of sun and cloud with cloud increasing over the day. Light south winds. Alpine high temperatures around +3 with freezing levels around 2300 metres, lowering a bit overnight.
Avalanche Summary
There are few observers in the field this week but reports showed a natural avalanche cycle of storm and wind slabs up to size 2 early in the week and loose wet avalanches with afternoon warming.
Snowpack Summary
Up to 50 cm of snow arrived in the past week. This recent snow rests on previously wind affected surfaces, sun crusts (on solar aspects) and weak, sugary facets. The prolonged period of cold temperatures in February has had an overall effect of weakening the upper and mid-snowpack, as well as the basal snowpack in thinner areas.Sunshine and warm temperatures will weaken the upper snowpack; the difficult question is how quickly this will affect deeper layers. One answer is the thinner the snowpack depth, the quicker it will happen.
Problems
Loose Wet
Loose Wet avalanches are the release of wet unconsolidated snow or slush. These avalanches typically occur within layers of wet snow near the surface of the snowpack, but they may quickly gouge into lower snowpack layers. Like Loose Dry Avalanches, they start at a point and entrain snow as they move downhill, forming a fan-shaped avalanche. Other names for loose-wet avalanches include point-release avalanches or sluffs. Loose Wet avalanches can trigger slab avalanches that break into deeper snow layers.
Persistent Slabs
Persistent Slab avalanches are the release of a cohesive layer of snow (a slab) in the middle to upper snowpack, when the bond to an underlying persistent weak layer breaks. Persistent layers include: surface hoar, depth hoar, near-surface facets, or faceted snow. Persistent weak layers can continue to produce avalanches for days, weeks or even months, making them especially dangerous and tricky. As additional snow and wind events build a thicker slab on top of the persistent weak layer, this avalanche problem may develop into a Deep Persistent Slab.