Avalanche Forecast

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

Strong Southwest winds and heavy precipitation are expected overnight combined with the freezing level staying at about 1600 metres in the North and about 2100 metres in the South. Light to moderate precipitation and moderate Southwest winds during the day on Saturday. Light precipitation and light Southerly winds on Sunday with freezing levels starting to drop slowly. Another pulse of moderate precipitation with light winds on Monday.

Natural and explosive controlled avalanches up to size 2.5 reported releasing in the storm snow. I suspect that there was a widespread natural avalanche cycle on Friday. Limited reports due to poor visibility and limited travel.

The new storm snow is now 25-40 cm thick and has been heavily wind affected, developing thick areas of wind transported snow that may be easy to trigger. The new storm slab sits on a variety of old surfaces, including hard crusts, breakable crusts at higher elevations, and surface hoar in some areas. A melt freeze crust can be found up to about 2200m. At higher elevations, the surface is heavily wind affected. The depth of the mid-January surface hoar is highly variable across the region and it may have been destroyed by warmth at low elevations. Where it does exist, it can be found between 30 and 70 cm below the surface. The mid-December surface hoar layer lies below a strong mid-pack down about 60 to 120cm. Both of these persistent layers have been reactive recently. The mid-November weak layer of crusts and facets can still be found near the bottom of the snowpack. It has been unreactive lately, but should be on your radar in shallow snowpack areas where there is more chance of triggering.