Avalanche Forecast

Moderate

Monday: Cloudy with flurries in the morning and sunny breaks in the afternoon. The freezing level is around 1500 m and ridge winds are light from the NW. Tuesday: Mainly sunny. The freezing level is around 1500 m and ridge winds are light from the W-SW. Wednesday: Mainly sunny. The freezing level is around 1600 m and ridge winds are light to moderate from the W-SW.

Several size 1 loose wet and loose dry avalanches were reported on steep slopes on all aspects on Saturday. Specific wind loaded features were also reactive to skier testing, generally producing size 1-2 slabs. There was also a report of a size 1.5 snowmobile triggered slab avalanche from a treeline feature in the Southeast corner of the region on Saturday. Throughout last week there were reports of natural and human triggered slab avalanches up to size 3 each day, with a fairly widespread natural avalanche cycle observed on Thursday and Friday.

Expect the surface to be a mix of dry snow on shady slopes, wind-affected snow in exposed terrain, and a sun crust/moist snow on solar aspects depending on the time of day. 60-90 cm of settled storm snow sits on a melt-freeze crust. In some areas there is a weak layer of surface hoar at the interface between the storm snow and the crust. The bond between the crust or surface hoar remains suspect, but there are also weaknesses reported within the top layers of the recent storm snow. Moderate winds have created areas of wind slab in the lee of west or southwest winds that may be close to a metre deep. Wind slabs in motion may trigger the persistent weak layer on the crust and result in wide propagations and very large avalanches. Surface hoar buried in early January now lies up to 200cm below the surface and has become less of a concern. Possible triggers for this deep and destructive layer include a large cornice fall, strong sunshine, or significant warming.