Avalanche Forecast

Poor - Due to the number of field observations

Overnight and Wednesday: Light precipitation overnight and continuing on Wednesday combined with moderate winds from the South that should increase towards the evening. Freezing levels are expected to stay around 1500 metres.Thursday: Moderate to heavy precipitation is expected to start during the morning, with 20-30 mm expected near the coastal areas of the region. Winds are expected to increase to strong or very strong from the Southwest.Friday: Precipitation should taper off to light values and the wind should slow a bit, but remain strong from the Southwest.

Numerous natural avalanches up to size 1.5 were observed from steep un-skiable terrain along the Skeena corridor on Monday. Older large natural avalanches in the Shames area appear to have run on a deeply buried crust that developed during clear warm weather in October. Recent soft slab avalanches released at the base of the November 23rd storm snow. Ski cuts resulted in wind loaded pockets releasing up to size 1.0 in the alpine.

Reports of extensive wind transport since the end of the November 23rd storm. There is a little more than a metre of snow at 1000 metres elevation, and the snowpack has been described as "generally moist" below this elevation. Snowpack tests resulted in moderate planar results down about 20 cm, and hard planar results on the early season crust down about 90 cm. These layers of concern may persist or become more reactive with the forecast snow load in the next few days.