Avalanche Forecast

High - The weather pattern is stable

Thursday: Mainly cloudy. Winds light from the southwest. Freezing level around 1000 metres with alpine temperatures of -6. Friday: Mainly cloudy. Winds moderate from the southwest. Freezing level around 1200 metres and alpine temperatures around -5 in the north of the region, closer to -2 in the south. Saturday: A mix of sun and cloud. Winds moderate gusting to extreme from the southwest. Freezing level around 1200 metres with alpine temperatures of -2 in the north of the region, 1800 metres and +1 in the south.

While no new avalanches were reported in the region on Tuesday, a natural Size 1.5 cornice release on Monday in the Pemberton area serves as a good reminder of cornices having matured considerably over the course of the recent storm. Wind slabs in immediate lee and unsupported terrain are also expected to remain reactive over the short term.

SOUTHERN AREAS (e.g. Coquihalla): 10-20cm of snow from last week appears to be bonding well to an underlying thick, supportive crust up to treeline elevations. At alpine elevations, up to 40cm of storm snow fell with some wind slabs forming on northerly aspects. NORTHERN AREAS (e.g. Duffey Lake): Up to and in some areas over metre of storm snow lies on the surface, the product of a series of storms late last week. In the days during and after the storms, this snow was redistributed by moderate to strong southerly winds from a wide range of directions. This resulted in touchy storm and wind slabs forming and bonding poorly to the previous snow surface. This surface includes facets and large surface hoar on sheltered slopes and/or a sun crust on steep sun-exposed aspects, as well as wind-affected surfaces (e.g. hard wind slab, sastrugi, scoured crust, etc.) in exposed areas. Weaknesses within the recent storm snow have been settling, but the bond of the storm snow to the previous cold snow surface from over a week ago is less reliable. Thin snowpack areas such as the South Chilcotin mountains remain the most likely to harbour this and other persistent weaknesses.