Avalanche Forecast

Fair - Forecast snowfall amounts are uncertain on Monday

Drizzle in the valley will bring another 3-5 cm to higher elevations on Sunday night. The wind is expected to decrease to about 30 km/hr at the ridge tops by Monday morning. Some light snowfall accumulating a couple more cm on Monday until about noon around Terrace. Smithers is expected to be quite a bit drier; Sunday night and Monday precipitation combined should only be about 5 cm. Temperatures are expected to drop to about -15 in the alpine by Tuesday morning as a ridge of high pressure moves into the region. Wednesday is expected to be mostly clear, but not as cold as Tuesday. The next system should be on the coast by Thursday. There may be some strong outflow winds on Tuesday afternoon as cooler air moves out towards the Pacific.

No new avalanche reports from this region. The forecast precipitation was confined to the near coastal areas around Terrace. I expect that the southwest part of this region did experience a natural avalanche cycle.

I do not know the extent of the wind effect from the storm on Saturday night, but I suspect that windslabs have developed in the lee of southwest winds. There is a rain crust down about 40 cm that exists up to approximately 1000 m. There is now approximately 80 to 120cms of storm snow sitting above a surface hoar/crust/facet layer that was buried mid-December. The increasing depth of this weak layer makes it difficult to trigger. I would not ignore this layer yet, as it could still be triggered by large loads such as rapid loading by new snow or rain or cornice falls. It could also be triggered by riders in shallow snowpack areas or where rocks poke up near the surface. The mid- and lower snowpack layers are well consolidated and generally strong.