Avalanche Forecast

Good

Synopsis: The upper ridge of high pressure continues to dominate the weather for the South Coast. The next few days should see mainly clear skies with possible valley cloud. The above freezing layer between 1000 and 3000 m should remain. Winds are generally moderate to strong from the northwest.

Recent observations include snowballing and several wet loose sluffs ip to Size 1.5 on sun-exposed slopes, and several natural slab avalanches up to size 2.5 from warming (south aspects) and windloading (east through south aspects). In most cases the suspected failure plane was the early January interface. There is also a report of a size 2.5 glide crack release in the Coquihalla. Check out this incident report from the Duffey Lake area on the weekend. The 60cm deep slab avalanche may have release on the surface hoar persistent weakness buried at the beginning of the month.

Above freezing temperatures at higher elevations caused snow surface moistening on sun-exposed slopes, breaking down the 1-2 cm surface crust, and weakening wind slabs. The surface snow on northerly aspects has been remaining dry with continued surface hoar growth. Below this, 40-80 cm of settling storm snow sits on a persistent weakness of buried surface hoar, facetted snow, and /or a crust. Recent snowpack tests show that this interface is gaining strength but is likely still susceptible to human triggering with potential to propagate widely. No significant weaknesses have been reported recently below this in the mid snowpack layers. Near the base of the snowpack, a crust/facet layer exists, which is now unlikely to be triggered, except perhaps by heavy triggers in steep, shallow, rocky terrain where more facetting has taken place.