Avalanche Forecast

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

Sunday: Cold with periods of light snow, amounting to perhaps 6cm. Strong westerly winds turning to light north-easterlies. Monday/Tuesday: Cloudy in the valleys with occasional snow. Strong northerly to easterly winds. Cold.

A smattering of avalanches involving persistent weak layers occurred throughout the region earlier in the week, on north-east aspects at treeline and above. No avalanche activity on these layers has been reported since Wednesday, however the possibility lingers.

The snowpack in the South Rockies region varies considerably at present, with the Southern Elk Valley and Flathead Ranges close in nature to the Lizard Range. Near the Crowsnest, it's been drier and more consistently windy. Castle Mountain has been having its own little party and getting locally heavy snowfall. Anywhere from 4-30cm of new snow has fallen, redistributed by strong south-westerly winds into soft and hard wind slabs on lee slopes. Besides new storm/wind-related concerns, the layer we're still watching in the region is a surface hoar layer buried in early December. It's down about 85cm in the Flathead and exhibits hard, sudden planar/full propagation results, meaning that's it's stubborn to trigger but could create a large avalanche if triggered.At the bottom of the snowpack a variable facet/crust/facet sandwich is located with depth hoar up to size 5mm below the crust, and facets size 2mm above. There has been little in the way of recent activity on basal layers.