Regions
Kootenay Boundary.
Warmth is the main driver of avalanche hazard at the moment. Minimize your exposure to large slopes if the snowpack is becoming moist or wet.
Weather Forecast
Tuesday: Broken skies. Freezing level starting around 2500m, dropping to 1500m by days end. 1 to 6mm of precipitation expected, 1 to 8cm of snow possible. Treeline winds moderate SW/W, ridgetop winds strong SW/W.Wednesday: Scattered cloud cover. Freezing level starting at 1300m, rising to 1600m in the afternoon. No significant precipitation. Light W winds at treeline, moderate NW winds at treeline.Thursday: Freezing level starting around 1000m, rising to 1600m in the afternoon. Light NW/W winds at all elevations. Few clouds in the morning increasing to 80% cloud cover in the afternoon.
Avalanche Summary
No new avalanche activity reported from Saturday or Sunday. The last significant round of activity was from Friday which involved wet activity to size 2 on all aspects between 1600m and 2200m.
Snowpack Summary
3 to 10 cm lie above a hard crust created by barely freezing temperatures Saturday night. Below this crust 15 to 60cm of moist rain soaked snow can be found. Below this you'll find the mid-March crust/facet complex which is consistently down 40 to 70cm. Continued mild conditions are likely helping to strengthen the bond at this interface.
Problems
Loose Wet
Loose Wet avalanches are the release of wet unconsolidated snow or slush. These avalanches typically occur within layers of wet snow near the surface of the snowpack, but they may quickly gouge into lower snowpack layers. Like Loose Dry Avalanches, they start at a point and entrain snow as they move downhill, forming a fan-shaped avalanche. Other names for loose-wet avalanches include point-release avalanches or sluffs. Loose Wet avalanches can trigger slab avalanches that break into deeper snow layers.
Wet Slabs
Wet Slab avalanches are the release of a cohesive layer of snow (a slab) that is generally moist or wet when the flow of liquid water weakens the bond between the slab and the surface below (snow or ground). They often occur during prolonged warming events and/or rain-on-snow events. Wet Slabs can be very unpredictable and destructive.