Avalanche Forecast

Fair - Timing, track, or intensity of incoming weather is uncertain

The rather largo weather pattern that has been in place for the last week is being swept out of the province Monday setting the stage for an active weather week influenced by SW flow for the southern interior. Monday Evening: freezing level tops out around 2000m Monday evening as precip begins to fall. 10mm of water are expected, most of which will fall as rain as high as 1800m. Alpine elevations should receive 15 or so cm of snow. Winds should be moderate out of the NE, switching SW overnight. Tuesday: Freezing levels remain near 1500m, trace of precip expected. Treeline winds light out of the S, SE, Alpine winds Moderate, SW. Wednesday: Freezing level 1500m, 5mm water expected during the day. Winds increasing to moderate SW at treeline, moderate gusting strong SW in the Alpine. Look for clearing skies Thursday AM with precipitation expected to start back up in the afternoon.

Lots of wet activity on Sunday, mostly wet point releases, sluffing & pinwheeling to size 1.5. It's interesting to note that a glide crack released out of steep ,rocky, east facing terrain in the Revelstoke area resulting in a size 2.5 avalanche. A report came in from Glacier Park Saturday of a remotely triggered large avalanche on a north aspect of Mt Tupper. The group of ski tourers had a large settlement on a ridge, and the adjacent slope failed down about 150 cm. Large remotely triggered avalanches have become less frequent, but seam to occur every couple of days.

Wind slabs in the alpine and at treeline are becoming less reactive. A melt-freeze crust exists from valley floor into the alpine on solar aspects. A key concern is a persistent weak layer of buried surface hoar from mid-February that is buried 1-2 m deep. Snowpack tests give sudden "pops" results on this layer in some areas, indicating the ongoing potential for very large avalanches. Because the layer is so deeply buried, it's unlikely to fail without a large trigger (e.g. cornice fall or explosive). However, there's always the chance of someone stumbling across a sweet spot, particularly in shallow snowpack areas. Solar warming could also destabilize the overlying snowpack, with the potential for step-downs or cornice triggering on this layer.