Regions
Northwest Coastal.
Spring Conditions. Cloudy and cooler conditions will reduce the size and likelihood of loose wet and wet slab avalanches. New surface crusts are expected to develop over the next few days.
Weather Forecast
Cloud continuing to develop overnight with moderate southerly winds, light precipitation, and freezing levels dropping to 1800 metres. Mostly cloudy with light precipitation on Friday combined with light southeast winds and freezing levels around 2300 metres. Moderate southerly winds on Saturday with 5-15 cm of new snow above 1500 metres. Cooling on Sunday with northerly winds and freezing levels dropping to 1000 metres.
Avalanche Summary
There are not may commercial operations still working in the field, so data is sparse at this time of year. If you have observations from your travels, please consider sharing through the MIN (Mountain Information Network).
Snowpack Summary
Temperatures are slowly cooling and freezing levels are expected to drop below 2000 metres overnight. New surface crusts should develop as the temperatures cool. There is a lot of heat in the snowpack after the recent very warm weather, and it may take more time than expected for mid-elevations to re-freeze. Forecast new snow amounts are light, and new wind slabs are not expected to develop. When the new surface crust develops I expect that avalanche activity will be unlikely until the next warm wave of spring/summer arrives,
Problems
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.
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.