Avalanche Forecast

Good - -1

Temperatures should drop down to about -12.0 in the alpine by Wednesday morning. The ridge of high pressure is expected to continue to bring clear skies and light winds during the day Wednesday. Alpine temperatures may rise above freezing on solar aspects, but should remain slightly below freezing on shaded aspects. Cloud should move into the region overnight and precipitation is expected to begin by about noon on Thursday. Western parts of the region may get 5 cm combined with moderate southerly winds. The freezing level should rise to 900 metres during the day and drop back to near valley bottom overnight. Another ridge is forecast for Friday that should bring mostly clear skies and light winds during the day.

Some sloughing in steep terrain up to size 1.0 that are running fast in the combination of light new snow, large surface hoar, and near surface facets.

A couple of cm fell in the south of the region on Monday night. This brings the total amount of new snow to about 10 cm above the February 08 surface hoar and near surface facets. The wind has been very light during these recent flurries. The surface hoar layer is at all elevations and aspects, and continues to grow due to clear cold nights. Some areas have reported a very light freezing drizzle that had mixed with some rimed stellars to form a thin soft crust above the recently buried surface hoar layer(120208 SH). Warm alpine temperatures and solar radiation have developed a melt-freeze crust on southerly aspects in the alpine and on all aspects below about 1300 metres. There are a couple of layers that are buried between 25-35 cm that give resistant planar results from tests when hard forces are applied. Recent facetting in the top 20 cm appears to be rounding and bonding. The mid pack is generally well settled and well bonded. Deeper weaknesses in the snowpack are less of a concern; however, in the southern end of the region there is still talk of basal facets as some operators are avoiding thin and rocky alpine features. This represents a very low probability-high consequence scenario. Large cornices are also widespread in the alpine.