The weather pattern will change to a moist and mild southwest flow starting on Thursday; however, most parts of this region won't see much warming until Friday or even Saturday.
Summary
Confidence
Fair - Due to the number of field observations
Weather Forecast
The weather pattern will shift to a milder and wetter southwest flow starting on Thursday. Clouds increase and light precipitation should begin by Thursday afternoon. Another pulse of heavier precipitation is expected Friday afternoon into Saturday morning. The transition from cold Arctic air to mild Pacific air could result in an above freezing layer on Friday – giving us freezing rain. This should dissipate by Saturday afternoon leaving us with a freezing level around 1000 m. Ridge top winds are moderate to strong from the Southwest.
Avalanche Summary
Snowpack Summary
Most areas experienced heavy rain last week up to 2000 m, or even higher. Higher elevations may have continued to see wet snow accumulate, and possibly a lot of it. Rapid cooling early on Friday probably left a solid rain crust near the surface, but in some areas it's already buried by 10-15 cm of light snow. Outflow winds (from the north or east) have likely created thin wind slabs in exposed lee terrain. A weak layer of facetted snow on a crust may be lurking deeper in the snowpack. However, it's possible this weakness was 'flushed' out with the recent heavy precipitation. There's limited recent info on this weakness so I recommend digging to confirm the existence of the layer, its depth, and to test its strength.
Peter,
Avalanche Canada
