Avalanche Forecast

Good

Wednesday: Snow flurries with another 5-10cm possible, moderate southwesterly winds becoming northwesterlies in the afternoon, and freezing levels are expected to rise as high as 1500m on Tuesday night but drop back down to 700m by midday Wednesday. Thursday and Friday: Mainly sunny and dry with light northerly winds and freezing levels near sea level.

Relatively small soft slab and dry loose avalanches were easily triggered on on Tuesday, but with further loading by new snow, the potential for larger, more destructive storm slab avalanches is expected to increase. At lower elevations near the coast widespread natural moist loose avalanches up to Size 2 were also reported.

20-30cm of storm snow since Friday is bonding poorly to the previous snow surface, which includes large surface hoar, facets, old hard wind slabs, or a sun crust. As more snow continues to load this weakness, and the slab settles and becomes cohesive, it is expected to become even more touchy with the potential for larger avalanches. No significant weaknesses have been reported recently below this in the mid snowpack layers. Near the base of the snowpack, a crust/facet layer exists, which is now unlikely to be triggered, except perhaps by heavy triggers in steep, shallow, rocky terrain where more facetting has taken place.