Avalanche Forecast
Issued: Feb 15th, 2017 4:07PM
The alpine rating is , the treeline rating is , and the below treeline rating is Known problems include Wet Slabs.
mgrist,
Avalanche Canada
The heavy rain on Wednesday-Thursday will make the snowpack unstable. Conservative terrain use and avoiding overhead hazard is critical.
Summary
Confidence
Moderate - Due to the number of field observations
Weather Forecast
Warm and wet still on Thursday. Cooling with light precipitation on Friday, and improving for Saturday. THURSDAY: Rain (20-30mm) / Moderate southwesterly winds / Freezing level around 1200 m. FRIDAY: Mostly cloudy with isolated flurries (local accumulations 5-10cm) / High temperatures to +1 Celsius / Light-moderate southerly winds / Freezing level around 1100 m. SATURDAY: Cloudy with sunny periods / Ridge winds light southerly / Freezing level around 900m / High temperatures to +1 Celsius.
Avalanche Summary
No new reported. Ski testing of small slopes gave no results on Wednesday.
Snowpack Summary
The 50-70 cm of snow from last week has been saturated by 100mm + of rain on Tuesday through Wednesday. So far, all has been bonding well to a knife hard crust buried Feb 3rd. That said, snowpack tests near the Cypress ski area on the weekend gave sudden planar, propagation-likely results down 70cm on the Feb 3rd widespread crust layer. This may become a sliding layer on Thursday with the continued rain.In the alpine, where the precipitation fell as snow, the storm slabs have taken longer to settle out and still are a concern: Dig down to test the bond of the more recent snow layers, and to see how the rain is affecting it. The mid and lower snowpack are settled and well bonded with the average snowpack depth at treeline 250-300 cm.
Problems
Wet Slabs
Heavy rain will saturate the upper snowpack and may trigger wet slab avalanche release on the widespread Feb 3rd crust, down 50-70cm.
Use extra caution on slopes if the snow is moist or wet.Avoid areas with overhead hazard.
Aspects: All aspects.
Elevations: All elevations.
Likelihood
Expected Size
Valid until: Feb 16th, 2017 2:00PM
