Avalanche Forecast

Poor - Due to limited field observations for the entire period

Friday: Moderate snowfall starting Thursday night is expected to bring 20-30cm of new snow before tapering off by the evening. Freezing levels could spike as high as 1400m, or higher in the Coquihalla, but shouldn't hover that high for very long. Mountaintop winds are expected to be extreme southwesterlies during the height of the storm. Saturday: Cloudy with isolated flurries, freezing levels around 800-1000m and light to moderate southwesterly winds. Sunday: A mix of sun and cloud, Freezing levels dropping to 500m and light winds.

No recent avalanches have been reported, although observations are extremely limited. Natural avalanche activity followed by human-triggered activity generally occurs with every intense weather period, such as what's forecast for Thursday night and Friday.

Coquihalla and Cayoosh Passes have about 50cm of snow on the ground, while treeline areas have around a metre. Alpine areas likely have much more that that but also highly variable depths. The main snowpack feature in the Whistler area is a rain crust buried early November and now down around 80cm at treeline. A weak layer of facets sitting on top of this curst recently gave very easy sudden collapse compression test results as well as moderate extended column test results that propagated across the entire column. Widespread whumpfing and cracking on this layer has also been reported. This weakness was  found in the Duffey Lake area as well; however, at least at 1700m it was only 10cm off the ground and still moist. At upper treeline and alpine elevations it may be frozen and faceted and high enough off the ground to reduce the affects of ground cover at least on slopes with smooth ground cover (e.g. scree slopes, rock slabs, summer firn, grass, etc.). For more information check out the telemarktips.com forum, the Mountain Conditions Report, and Wayne Flann's Avalanche Blog.