Avalanche Forecast

Moderate - Due to the number of field observations

Wednesday night: Increasing cloud and light flurries with a trace of new snow. Strong to extreme southwest winds. Thursday: Mainly cloudy with continuing scattered flurries bringing an uncertain trace to 10 cm of new snow. Strong southwest winds. Alpine high temperatures around -5.Friday: Mainly sunny before increasing cloud and flurries begin in the evening. Strong to extreme southwest winds. Alpine high temperatures jumping to about 0 as freezing levels reach 2300 metres.Saturday: Increasingly clear as cloud and light flurries ease over the day. Strong to extreme southwest winds easing over the day. Alpine high temperatures around -5 with freezing levels back to about 1600 metres.

No new avalanches have been reported in the region, but rugged travel conditions at lower elevations have lately been discouraging travel in the alpine, where the bulk of our current avalanche danger resides.

About 15-20 cm of new snow has buried previous snow surfaces that ranged from soft power to hard wind slab and sun crust. Strong winds have likely been aggressively forming storm slabs and wind slabs with the new snow at higher elevations.Beneath the new snow and old surface, the snowpack has a thin, weak structure, with the bottom half of the snowpack composed of weak facets and crusts. This basal layer has not been active, but terrain features like smooth alpine bowls with variable snowpack depths are still suspect given this snowpack structure. Currently only 30-90 cm of snow can be found in alpine areas and much less at lower elevations