Avalanche Forecast

High - The weather pattern is stable

The storm cycles of December are just a memory now and it seems the atmosphere is falling into the classic El Nino arrangement. A small blip of a storm may bring a bit of precipitation to the South Coast Sunday night but we are not expecting any of that system to spill over into the Kootenays.  The pattern looks pretty slack for the forecast period. SUNDAY: Freezing level at valley bottom, light southeast winds at treeline, moderate southeast winds at ridge top, no precipitation. MONDAY: Freezing level at valley bottom, light southeast winds at treeline, moderate southeast winds at ridge top, no precipitation. TUESDAY: Freezing level at valley bottom, light southeast winds at treeline, moderate southwest winds at ridge top, no precipitation.  For more detailed mountain weather information visit avalanche.ca/weather.

For the last four days reported avalanche activity has been limited to small loose snow avalanches running in the upper snowpack. There has probably been more of this activity on solar aspects than the more shady north and east aspects.

Warm temperatures are helping all the recent storm snow to settle and bond to the existing snowpack. Previous to the warming, storm slabs up to 40cm in depth were touchy in the southern Monashees around Big White. Across the region, 5 to 25 cm of rapidly settling snow rests on a variety of weak layers including small grain facets, surface hoar up to 14 mm in size and a sun crust on steep south and southwest facing features. Underneath this you'll find 40 to 60 cm of old storm snow that should be settling too. Under this old storm snow the mid-December crust can be found. This interface was never problematic, but in Kootenay Pass there is a spotty surface hoar layer on or just above this crust that is most prevalent on north facing features between 1800 and 2000 m. At treeline the early December crust is down around 70 to 130 cm. This thick and supportive crust is likely capping any deeper weaknesses in most places. There have been reports of facets on this crust in the Nelson area, so we'll want to keep our eye on it as we move into early 2016. The lower snowpack is thought to be well settled.