Avalanche Forecast

Moderate -

Tuesday: Mainly cloudy with isolated flurries and a trace to 3 cm of new snow. Up to 15 cm possible in the south of the region. Moderate to strong southwest winds. Freezing level to 1200 metres with alpine high temperatures around -4.Wednesday: A mix of sun and cloud with isolated flurries and a trace of new snow. Light west winds. Alpine high temperatures of -7.Thursday: Cloudy with isolated flurries and a trace of new snow, continuing overnight. Light southwest winds. Freezing level rising to around 1500 metres with alpine high temperatures of -2.

Reports from Saturday and Sunday showed recently formed storm slabs reactive to skier traffic and ski cutting, producing numerous small (Size 1, 20-35 cm deep) storm slab and loose dry releases. Observations from the north of the region on Monday showed especially touchy conditions, with numerous soft storm slabs releasing very easily on terrain over 35 degrees. On Thursday, two natural storm slab avalanches stepped-down to facets at the bottom of the snowpack and resulted in Size 3-3.5 avalanches. They occurred on north and south aspects between 2000 and 2250 m. The potential for these types of deep releases is expected to be generally diminishing with cooling temperatures and tapering snowfall.

Another approximately 20 cm of new snow from Sunday through Monday morning brought recent storm totals to 110-140cm. Rising freezing levels delivered much of this precipitation as rain below about 1300 metres. Where new snow accumulated, continued strong south winds have once again redistributed it into dense storm slabs in lee and cross-loaded features at treeline and above.From 110-140 cm below the surface you'll likely begin find a few crusts that were buried during the first few weeks of January. Due to limited observations, not much is known about the current reactivity of these layers.The lower snowpack includes the more well-documented mid-December crust layer. Persistent slab avalanche activity from late last week suggests that heavy triggers like a large storm slab or cornice release may carry the risk of triggering this layer in isolated terrain - particularly in the north of the region where it has shown prolonged reactivity in snowpack tests.