Avalanche Forecast

Moderate -

Clear skies are expected for Wednesday and Thursday with increased cloud forecast for Friday. Ridgetop winds should remain generally light to moderate from the east for Wednesday and Thursday, and then become stronger on Friday. Freezing levels should remain at valley bottom for the forecast period.

On Sunday there were several skier, snowmobile and naturally triggered avalanches to report from riding areas to the west of Smithers. One of these avalanches in the Microwave area involved the full depth of the snowpack and resulted in a full burial. Click here for a description and images of the incident on Facebook. It is well worth a read. Another report in the Ashman area shows a skier-triggered size 2 avalanche running on surface hoar at the storm snow and old snow interface in a sheltered area at tree line. Natural avalanches are reported to be full depth of the snowpack to size 3.5 in the alpine and at tree line.

A series of snowfalls last week accumulated 40-80 cm of storm snow, which now sits above a widespread rain crust up to about 1300 m. At tree line and above, the storm snow is settling and/or being redistributed into new wind slabs. Below, several buried surface hoar layers can be found, between 50-100 cm deep. Before the storm, these layers had been yielding moderate to hard results in snowpack tests. A generally stiff mid pack sits above weak sugary snow near the ground. The new load sitting on top has reached a critical level and has woken-up a deep persistent slab problem in many parts of the region. The consequences of triggering an avalanche on this layer are high. This is a good time to be very cautious and disciplined with terrain choices.