Avalanche Forecast

Fair - Intensity of incoming weather is uncertain

Tuesday night's storm should deliver 15 - 25 cm of snow by Wednesday morning with the western side of the region picking up the larger amount. The forecast is still calling for big winds in excess of 100 km/h Tuesday night into Wednesday. The freezing level should hover around 1300 m Wednesday with temperatures at 1500 m clocking in at -2. A weak storm system moves into the area Thursday morning producing a few additional cm's before being overtaken by high pressure before lunch. High pressure continues to dominate on Friday.

Natural activity quieted right down on Monday. There were a few skier triggered avalanches reported from the region, but they were on very specific features such as wind-loaded pockets and steep solar aspects.

The region received between 30 & 70 cm from the weekend's storm with the west side picking up the larger amounts. Three different shears have been reported in the storm snow. While these more superficial instabilities will likely settle out pretty quickly, we need to think about what all this new snow is sitting on. Remember the cold snap last week? Those cold temperatures drove faceting and created very dry loose snow that is now buried 40 - 100 cm deep. If you were out recreating on Monday you no doubt observed that the snow is settling into a soft slab. Out in the wind exposed areas there is an abundance of snow available for slab formation and a widespread wind slab avalanche problem has been observed across the region. This problem will be further exacerbated as winds are forecasted to be in excess of 100 km/h at ridge top Wednesday.Various surfaces buried in early January including a rain crust, spotty surface hoar and preserved stellar snow crystals are now about 80-100cm deep and may provide a sliding layer for future avalanches. A surface hoar layer buried in mid-December is gaining strength, but professionals are still treating it with caution as the consequences of an avalanche on this layer would be high. Occasional hard, planar results have been reported on this layer in snowpack tests. It's now down about 140cm in the snowpack. Tuesday's wind/storm didn't quite verify and as a result, the danger was probably more like Considerable, Considerable, Moderate. Check out the blog for some insight: http://bit.ly/sF10fT