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Avalanche Forecast

Archived

Dec 3rd, 2018–Dec 4th, 2018

Alpine
Natural avalanches unlikely, human triggered possible.
Treeline
Natural avalanches unlikely.
Below Treeline
Natural avalanches unlikely.
Alpine
Natural avalanches unlikely, human triggered possible.
Treeline
Natural avalanches unlikely.
Below Treeline
Natural avalanches unlikely.
Alpine
Natural avalanches unlikely, human triggered possible.
Treeline
Natural avalanches unlikely.
Below Treeline
Natural avalanches unlikely.

Regions

Sea To Sky.

Change is in the air with forecast warming and sunshine shifting the focus to surface instabilities on Tuesday.

Confidence

Moderate - Timing or intensity of solar radiation is uncertain

Weather Forecast

Monday night: Mainly clear. Light northeast winds. Tuesday: Sunny. Light northwest winds. Alpine high temperatures around -1 with a increasing alpine temperature inversion establishing an above freezing layer at 2000 metres by evening.Wednesday: Sunny. Light northeast winds. Alpine high temperatures around -1 under a continuing alpine temperature inversion with an above freezing layer at 2000 metres.Thursday: Sunny with cloudy periods. Light variable winds. Alpine high temperatures around -1 with a lingering alpine temperature inversion and above freezing layer at 2000 metres.

Avalanche Summary

No new avalanches were reported over the weekend.Explosives control work in the Whistler area on Friday produced several size 1.5 cornice releases and one 20 cm deep size 1.5 storm slab. On Wednesday cornices were touchy; a size 1.5 cornice failure was initiated with a very light load. Control work produced storm slabs that averaged size 1.5 on a variety of aspects in the alpine. The outlier was a size 3 avalanche induced by control work on a north facing alpine feature which stepped down to the early November crust.Please submit any observations you have to the Mountain Information Network here,

Snowpack Summary

Days of cool, clear weather have grown a widespread new layer of feathery surface hoar crystals on the snow surface. Below the surface, the same cold has been transforming the storm snow from last week into a layer of faceted (sugary) snow. This layer of faceting storm snow increases in depth from about 20 cm at 1800-2000 metres, where it sits above a strong rain crust, to upwards of 30-40 cm in the alpine above 2000 metres, where the crust is not present. Here, the storm snow shows good signs of bonding well to the now well-settled mid snowpack.Above 2000 m, about 50-150 cm of snow now sits on the early November melt-freeze crust. This crust may be layered with weak faceted crystals in places where it lies close to the ground. This is most likely to cause problems in glaciated terrain or on smoother, high elevation slopes where the summer snow did not melt out.

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.

Cornices

Cornice Fall is the release of an overhanging mass of snow that forms as the wind moves snow over a sharp terrain feature, such as a ridge, and deposits snow on the downwind (leeward) side. Cornices range in size from small wind drifts of soft snow to large overhangs of hard snow that are 30 feet (10 meters) or taller. They can break off the terrain suddenly and pull back onto the ridge top and catch people by surprise even on the flat ground above the slope. Even small cornices can have enough mass to be destructive and deadly. Cornice Fall can entrain loose surface snow or trigger slab avalanches.