Avalanche Forecast

Issued: Mar 19th, 2021 3:00PM

The alpine rating is moderate, the treeline rating is moderate, and the below treeline rating is low. Known problems include Wind Slabs.

Avalanche Canada matt, Avalanche Canada

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With some light snow coming through the area, expect the skiing to be good. There will hopefully be just enough snow to take the edge off the crusty conditions on south aspects. 

Summary

Confidence

Moderate -

Weather Forecast

If good spring skiing is your thing, read on...

We are expecting somewhere around 10cm of new snow by late tonight or early tomorrow. Forecasts don't quite agree, but they all say snow. They do agree on winds being moderate from the SW at ridgelines. The best part is its also going to cool off. The daytime high is -4, but with cloudy skies.

Avalanche Summary

Only a few reports of small loose dry avalanches running on hard surfaces. 

Snowpack Summary

It sounds like we had some light snow that has buried the sun crusts and other various layers. With that we expect thin wind slabs in the alpine. The question will be how well they've bonded to the underlying layers. Given the warm temperatures, they will probably stick OK. Aside from the windslabs, we are dealing with a well settled spring like snowpack. Dry snow on polar aspects and refrozen, slightly buried crusts on sunny slopes.

Terrain and Travel

  • Wind slabs may be poorly bonded to the underlying crust.
  • Closely monitor how the new snow is bonding to the crust.

Problems

Wind Slabs

An icon showing Wind Slabs

Isolated windslabs in lee alpine features

Aspects: North, North East, East, South East, North West.

Elevations: Alpine, Treeline.

Likelihood

Likely

Expected Size

1.5 - 2.5

Valid until: Mar 20th, 2021 3:00PM

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