Avalanche Forecast

Fair - Intensity of incoming weather is uncertain on Sunday

Sunday: light to moderate snowfall on Saturday night becoming light on Sunday / strong southwest winds decreasing in the afternoon / freezing levels reaching 1300m Monday: light flurries / moderate west winds / freezing level at 800m Tuesday: light flurries / light southwest winds / freezing level at 900m

On Friday explosives testing in the Duffey Lake area produced avalanches to size 2.5. In the Coquihalla area, explosives control produced numerous size 2-3 avalanches with crowns ranging from 30-150cm.

Friday and Saturday saw little in the way of new snow for the South Coast Inland region, but the big story in the region has been moderate to heavy snowfall and fluctuating freezing levels over the past week accompanied by generally high winds. It seems that as soon as one storm interface starts to strengthen, another system comes in and creates new destructive wind and storm slabs. Adding to the complexity of the storm slab problem is the January 20th interface where facetted snow from the mid-January cold snap acts as a bed surface for all of this past week's snow. A profile from the Coquihalla area also showed facets existing in combination with an underlying crust about 1m down. The probability of any activity at this interface is decreasing, but the consequences of a slide would be large and very destructive.With the recent wind and snowfall there are widespread unstable cornices. Any cornice fall would be destructive by itself, but could also be a trigger for the slope below. Persistent weak layers lower down in the snowpack have generally ceased to be of concern, except perhaps in very isolated, thin rocky areas. Most recently, the Coquihalla area has been receiving the most snowfall with current snowpack depths at treeline amounting to 390cm. In the Duffey Lake area, treeline depths are closer to 240cm.Expect continued wind slab development with forecast weather on Sunday.