Avalanche Forecast

Fair - Timing or intensity of solar radiation is uncertain on Saturday

A ridge of high pressure is expected to slowly move into the interior ranges on Saturday. Unsettled conditions with showers in the valleys and flurries above 1700 metres should continue during the day. Clearing skies are forecast by Saturday evening, which should bring the freezing level down to about 1200 metres overnight. Sunday should be mostly sunny with light variable winds and a chance of afternoon cloud building as the freezing level rises to about 1800 metres. The wind is expected to start to build out of the southwest on Monday as a low pressure system moves onto the south coast. It is a little too early to forecast when this system will push into the eastern ranges of the interior mountains.

There was a size 2.5 slab avalanche that released naturally on the March 27th crust near Golden. On Thursday there were natural and explosive controlled avalanches up to size 3.0 that were suspected to have run on the March 27th weak layer.

Some areas in the north and west are reporting that there was no freeze again on Thursday night. In the south of the area it was reported that there was a freeze above 1700 metres. We are getting into a classic spring melt-freeze scenario. When the temperatures rise in the afternoon and when we have periods of rain showers the snowpack will weaken and moist to wet point releases may be initiated. There is a crust that was buried around the 27th of March that has some preserved facets above it that is now down about 100 cm. This crust may propagate wide avalanches if large triggers like moist and wet avalanches get bit moving. This crust is mostly an issue on south aspects. Deeply buried facets from early in the season may continue to be triggered on northerly aspects during periods of extended warming.