Avalanche Forecast

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The arctic front will gradually weaken and move east as the week progresses. Unstable weather will bring light snow accumulations with freezing levels near 700 m tonight through Tuesday. Ridgetop winds will blow moderate to strong from the South. Wednesday will mostly be cloudy with some flurries.

There are no recent avalanche observations from this region. Last Friday a MIN post (avalanche.ca) reported a small slab that pulled out below a cornice. The slab was 15 cm deep by 30 m wide.

Snowpack depths are variable across the region and significantly peters out below treeline, opening it up for many early season hazards like open creeks, rocks, downed trees and below threshold for avalanche hazard. The average snowpack depth at treeline is 60 cm with 120 cm plus in the alpine. Surface snow tends to be variable with low density fluff to exposed areas of wind effect. A series of crusts buried beneath down 20-30 cm of fairly consolidated snow are showing sudden easy shears in snowpack tests. When traveling in the mountains Id maintain an investigative approach and dig down to test for weak layers before committing to a slope. If you've been in the mountains, please share your observations on our Mountain Information Network.