Avalanche Forecast

Moderate - Due to the number of field observations

On Friday expect 5-15cm on new snow, strong southwest winds and freezing levels at about 1000m. On Saturday and Sunday, the region will see another 5cm of new snow each day with freezing levels hovering around 800m. Winds for Saturday will be mainly moderate and southwesterly, switching to light and northerly on Sunday.

In recent days, backcountry avalanche observations have been extremely limited, mostly due to stormy weather. That said, I'm sure there was a widespread natural avalanche cycle on Thursday in response to heavy storm loading. Forecast cooling should help gradually reduce natural avalanche activity. But, for the short term storm slabs will likely remain sensitive to light loads, while potential remains for very large persistent slab avalanche activity.

On Wednesday night and Thursday morning, heavy snowfall and strong winds continued to form deep and dense storm slabs in high elevation terrain and cause substantial cornice growth. At treeline and below, rain fell and further saturated the snowpack. The snow line fluctuated a great deal during the storm which dropped up to 60mm of precipitation throughout the region.Where it still exists, the mid-January surface hoar layer is between 70 and 150 cm below the surface. The hope is the combination of heavy storm loading and warm temperatures has flushed out this weak layer in most areas, but that remains to be seen. In the wake of the storm, there will be a lot of uncertainty regarding the reactivity and distribution of this destructive persistent avalanche problem, especially at high elevations in the north of the region where continued reactivity at this interface has been observed. Additionally, the snowpack will require time to adjust to the stress of heavy storm loading. A very conservative approach to mountain travel is still required.