Avalanche Forecast

Good - Freezing levels are uncertain on Monday

A strong, stable northwesterly flow will prevail over the province while a strong upper ridge remains offshore. The mountain top winds should ease Sunday as the upper ridge moves over the coast. The ridge will then weaken somewhat on Monday but will still protect the province from Pacific systems.Sunday: Freezing Level: Valley Bottom; Precip: Nil; Wind: Light, Variable. Strong NW at ridgetop.Monday: Freezing Level: Valley Bottom with chance of an Above Freezing Layer from 1500 2500m. Precip: Nil; Wind: Light Variable, Mod NW at ridgetop.Tuesday: Freezing Level: Valley Bottom; Precip: Trace; Wind: Lht Variable.

There have been a few different close calls with large avalanches in the north of this region in the last two weeks. Check out the incident database for more details. On Friday avalanches released naturally and with explosive control resulting in avalanches to size 3.5 with crowns up to 2 meters in depth on all aspects.

Thursdays 20 - 40 cm of storm snow lies on top of old wind slabs and a couple of persistent weak layers that exist in the upper meter of the relatively thin snowpack. The Mid December Surface Hoar is buried around 30-90 cm. The early December facet/crust combo is buried down 50-150 cm. Both interfaces give variable results with snowpack tests, but professional operators are treating them with caution.A bigger concern, especially in the Northern part of the region is a layer of weak sugary depth hoar crystals at the base of the snowpack that lie above a crust from early October. Several large avalanches in the last two weeks have been attributed to failures at this layer. Wide propagations on relatively gentle terrain have been noted, as well as a tendency for seemingly disconnected slopes to become connected by one large avalanche.