Avalanche Forecast
Issued: Dec 8th, 2012 9:12AM
The alpine rating is Wind Slabs and Deep Persistent Slabs.
, the treeline rating is , and the below treeline rating is Known problems includeSummary
Confidence
Poor - Due to limited field observations for the entire period
Weather Forecast
Sunday: Moderate to heavy precipitation throughout the day with strong gusting to extreme northwesterly winds. Alpine temperatures -3 degrees with a freezing level at 1000m. Monday: Heavy precipitation with southwesterly winds 30-50km/h gusting to 90km/h. Freezing levels expected at 800m with alpine temperatures -4 degrees.Tuesday: Light precipitation, temperatures cooling to -7 in the alpine. Winds southwesterly moderate to strong.
Avalanche Summary
Natural activity isolated to the storm snow to size 1.5. Explosives testing north of the Stewart region indicate an avalanche running to size 3.5 in north facing alpine terrain failing in a weak layer of facets near the base of the snowpack.
Snowpack Summary
The storm snow from the past week has settled and been redistributed by the wind from a variety of directions at upper elevations. Alpine and treeline surface snow conditions are variable with buried wind slabs, newly formed wind slabs and areas that are heavily scoured. The mid-pack is gaining strength and is well settled.An November facet/crust layer can be found in the bottom quarter of the snowpack. We do not have much recent information on this facet/crust interface, so it may be worth digging down yourself to test its reactivity.Total snowpack depth above 1000 m is 150-200 cm deep. Below 1000 m the snowpack shows a sharp transition from 100 cm dropping to 50 cm, and is generally below threshold.
Problems
Wind Slabs
Aspects: North, North East, East, South East.
Elevations: All elevations.
Likelihood
Expected Size
Deep Persistent Slabs
Aspects: All aspects.
Elevations: Alpine, Treeline.
Likelihood
Expected Size
Valid until: Dec 9th, 2012 2:00PM