Avalanche Forecast

Moderate - Timing or intensity of solar radiation is uncertain

Light snow with strong SW winds are expected on Sunday, as a Pacific storm spills over from the north coast. On Monday and Tuesday, a strong ridge builds, bringing clear skies. A southerly flow brings very warm temperatures, with the freezing level near 2500 m.For more details check out http://www.avalanche.ca/weather.

Numerous small natural and human triggered storm slabs have been reported in the last few days. The January surface hoar remains a concern. A size 3 natural avalanche that occurred earlier in the week at treeline near Blue River was reported to be around 1500 m wide, demonstrating the ability of this layer to propagate and produce large destructive avalanches. On Sunday, a helicopter is believed to have remotely triggered a size 2.5 persistent slab avalanche at the 1900 m elevation from a distance of 200 m. This slab was about 400 m wide, 90 cm deep and is thought to have failed on the early January surface hoar. Although both of these avalanches occurred on the east side of Highway 5 (technically in the Northern Monashees), similar touchy conditions likely exist in many parts of the Cariboos.

Up to 45 cm of recent storm snow is settling to form a soft slab in sheltered areas. Strong southwesterly winds have formed fresh wind slabs in lee features at treeline and in the alpine. Below about 1800 m, this new snow is sitting on a crust. Several touchy layers of surface hoar from early to mid-January are now buried between 70 and 120 cm deep and are variably reactive. In other words, some slopes are difficult to trigger, while remote triggering is still possible on other features. These layers have the potential for wide propagations, and smaller avalanches could step-down to one of these layers. Snowpack depths are variable across the region and shallow snowpack areas may have weak facetted crystals near the ground.