Avalanche Forecast

Fair - Due to the number of field observations

A weak ridge of high pressure should bring a mix of sun and cloud for Sunday. Freezing levels are forecast to reach around 1800m in the afternoon and alpine winds are expected to be light. Good overnight recovery is expected during the forecast period with freezing levels falling to around valley bottom each night. On Monday and Tuesday, mostly cloudy conditions are expected with scattered convective flurries. Afternoon freezing levels should reach around 1600m each day and alpine winds should remain light.

On Thursday, a natural size 2 wind slab was reported from an east aspect at 2400m. A skier controlled size 1 wind slab avalanche was reported from an east aspect at 2600m. No new slab avalanches were observed on Friday but loose sluffing from steep terrain features was reported. On Sunday, thin wind slabs are expected to reactive to human-triggering.

At higher elevations, new storm snow (10-30cm) sits over a variety of surfaces including moist snow, crusts, wind affected surfaces, and/or old wind slabs. In exposed terrain, strong SW winds have redistributed new snow into wind slabs on leeward features. The snow surface has been reported to be wet to around 1800m and moist to around 2300m. The snow surface is now expected to undergo melt-freeze cycles as freezing levels fluctuate overnight. 20-50 cm below the surface is the mid-February facet/crust interface. This interface has not yet become reactive in the Purcell region but in the North Columbia region it has produced numerous large avalanches. With the new storm loading, this layer may become reactive and smaller avalanches have the potential to step down. The late-January crust/surface hoar layer (around 1m deep) and the mid-January surface hoar (over 1m deep) have been dormant for several weeks.