Avalanche Forecast

Moderate - Timing, track, or intensity of incoming weather system is uncertain

Light snow (3-5 cm) is forecast overnight with moderate westerly winds and freezing levels dropping down to valley bottoms. Some flurries continuing on Thursday with moderate northwest winds and valleys temperatures rising up to about +1.0 celcius. Cloud continuing on Friday with moderate northwest winds and temperatures around -10 in the alpine. Increasing southwest winds on Saturday with increased cloud and some flurries or light snow.

On Tuesday a couple of reports of slab avalanches size 1.0 were reported from alpine elevations. One of these slabs was remotely triggered from six metres away.

Another 5 cm of new snow overnight makes the recent storm snow total about 10-15 cm above a variety of weak surfaces including surface hoar and facets. The upper snowpack is generally loose and unconsolidated due to the current lack of slab properties, however there is now 30-40 cm sitting on a mix of surface hoar, facets, and sun crusts that were buried January 4th. Some operations continue to track buried surface hoar from early December. While test results on deeply buried surface hoar continue to show planar results when hard forces are applied, there have not been any avalanches reported failing on this layer. I have removed the persistent weak layer problem from the front page, and we will continue to monitor reports from operators in this region. The mid and lower snowpack is generally well settled and strong.