Strong winds have been forming touchy wind slabs with what's left of our loose surface snow. Deeper in the snowpack, our persistent slab problem lives on.
Summary
Confidence
Moderate -
Weather Forecast
Monday: Mainly cloudy with isolated flurries and a trace of new snow. Winds moderate to strong from the west. Freezing level returning to valley bottom with alpine temperatures around -7Tuesday: A mix of sun and cloud with scattered flurries bringing approximately 5cm of new snow. Winds light to moderate from the northeast. Alpine temperatures of -9.Wednesday: A mix of sun and cloud. Winds light from the northeast. Alpine temperatures of -15.
Avalanche Summary
No new avalanches have been reported. The main concern continues to be the possibility of triggering the weak faceted layers deeper in the snowpack. Ongoing winds have also been observed creating thin fresh slabs reactive to human triggering at upper elevations.
Snowpack Summary
Up to 10 cm of low density snow has been undergoing heavy wind redistribution over the past few days, joining previous hard, wind-affected surfaces and forming thin layers of wind slab in lee terrain at higher elevations. Below 1500 metres you may find an isolated thin breakable rain crust about 1 cm thick. In the Elk Valley north area near Crown Mountain on Tuesday the height of snow was 90 cm with foot penetration of 80 cm; or almost to ground. Some solar exposed terrain in the alpine may have a thin sun-crust about 3 cm thick, and this may have a few cm of light dry snow above . The snowpack is quite variable throughout the region. In deeper snowpack areas, the snowpack appears to be well settled with isolated concerns about the mid-December facet layer buried 50-100 cm deep. In shallow snowpack areas and lower elevations, the snowpack is weak and faceted. In these areas, winds have formed isolated hard slabs above weak facets and created the potential for large persistent slab avalanches.
cgarritty,
Avalanche Canada
