Avalanche Forecast

Moderate - Timing or intensity of solar radiation is uncertain on Wednesday

Wednesday: Clear skies in the morning with increased cloud throughout the day / Strong southwest winds / Freezing level at 2500mThursday: 5-10cm of new snow / Strong southwest winds / Freezing level at 2100mFriday: Clearing skies / Light southwest winds / Freezing level at about 1800m

Recent observations have been limited; however, a size 2 solar-triggered slab avalanche was observed at 2000m in the Elkford area on Tuesday. It was thought to be about a day old. For Wednesday, warm temperatures can be expected to promote instability within the snowpack. As the warm temperatures persist, and especially if we don't experience refreezing overnight, the potential for deep persistent slab releases will rise steadily each day. Any avalanches releasing on a basal weakness will likely be large and very destructive.

Roughly 10 cm of new snow received late last week has been redistributed into wind slabs by strong southerly winds at upper elevations. Where it hasn't blown away, this new snow now lies above the 15-30 cm of dense snow that fell over the region on Thursday, which was mixed with periods of rain at lower elevations. Together, these more recent accumulations overlie the 90cm of low density storm snow that we received last weekend. Strong shifting winds redistributed this previous storm snow in exposed terrain, forming wind slabs over a variable old surface which includes wind affected surfaces, facets, and/or a rain crust below around 1500 m. The bond at the interface between this older storm snow and the previous surface is suspected to be improving slowly.In deeper areas, the snowpack appears to be well settled with only isolated concerns about the mid-December facet layer which was buried 50-100 cm deep prior to the weekend storm. In shallow snowpack areas and at lower elevations, the mid to lower snowpack is weak, faceted, and has no structure. In these areas the snowpack's weakness may reach a tipping point as warm temperatures persist over the coming days.