Avalanche Forecast

Fair - Intensity of incoming weather systems is uncertain

Tonight and Saturday: A trace of precipitation and clouds clearing tonight. Tomorrow cloudy with light southwesterly winds and the freezing level rising to 1100m. Alpine high -6.Sunday: Precipitation starting overnight and carrying into the day, accumulations of 5-10cm. Strong winds from the southwest at ridge tops. Alpine temperatures around -8. Monday: Mainly cloudy with accumulations to 5cm. Freezing levels around 1200m. Light southwesterly ridge top winds.

On Wednesday a size 2 avalanche in the south eastern part of the region was triggered below treeline and caught and carried a skier. The slab was on a south east aspect, was 40 cm deep, and ran on on a combination of sun crust and facets beneath the storm snow. Several recent explosive, skier controlled, snowmobile triggered, natural avalanches and cornice falls sizes ranging from 1 to 2.5 have been reported on various aspects and elevations. Additional reports of "whumphing" settlements and shooting cracks from skis tips are highly indicative of an unstable snowpack.

Over the last few days 30-50cm has been deposited across the region. South westerly winds have built reactive slabs 40- 80cm thick, on lee north and east aspects at upper elevations. Recent snowpack tests show sudden and easy results, indicating that storm slabs are not bonding well to underlying layers - these include; old hard slabs in the alpine, sun crusts, and several sandwiched layers of facets and surface hoar. The mid snowpack is strong and supportive. A deep persistent layer of facets and depth hoar near the base of the snowpack has remained dormant to this point, but may become a concern with additional load and stress on the snowpack.