Avalanche Forecast

High - Due to the quality of field observations

The weather this weekend is looking to be clear with relatively light winds and warm temps.  Freezing levels are expected to climb up to around 2000-2200m on Saturday and higher on Sunday so this will be the first big pulse of spring heat into the snowpack.  This heat will likely wake up the basal instabilities in a few places and trigger some larger avalanches so use caution.

There was a recent sz 3 off of Mt Nestor on Friday that was on a NE aspect around 2900m likely triggerred by a cornice collapse. There were also a few more sz 2 avalanches on solar aspects around 2400m that appeared to be failing on one of the recent march crusts.  In addition to this, there was also numerous loose dry avalanches up to sz 1 on all aspects.

Very little wind affect is being noticed throughout the forecast region. Windslabs are isolated in both treeline and alpine areas confined to ridgelines, gullied features and crossloaded slopes. The snowpack differs depending upon which aspect you are on. On solar aspects, there are a series of crusts in the top 100cm of the snowpack that are producing moderate sheers. On more polar aspects, the snowpack is more settled with only the basal weaknesses such as facets and depth hoar being the main concern. Forecasters were noticing whumpfing from thin shallow snowpack areas while travelling into alpine terrain today. Be especially cautious around these thinner snowpack areas as these are likely trigger points for a skier. Cornices are still very large at this time and we have seen numerous collapses over the past few days causing large destructive avalanches. Solar radiation that is likely to occur over the weekend is only going to decrease the stability making these problems more prominent. Use caution and be thinking about the sun and full depth, full path avalanches.