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
Monday: Freezing level starting around 2300m, rising to 2600m by the afternoon. Very light South/Southwest winds at treeline, moderate SW winds at ridgetop. Spring pattern, scattered cloud cover giving way to clearing skies in the afternoon. No significant precipitation expected.Tuesday: Broken skies. Freezing level starting around 2100m, dropping to 1500m by days end. 1 to 5mm of precipitation expected, 1 to 7cm of snow possible. Treeline winds moderate SW/W, ridgetop winds strong SW/W.Wednesday: Scattered cloud cover. Freezing level starting at 1300m, rising to 1800m in the afternoon. No significant precipitation. Light W winds at treeline, moderate NW winds at ridgetop.
Avalanche Summary
No new avalanche activity reported from Saturday. A wide variety of avalanches were observed Friday: Loose wet avalanches to size 2 on all aspects between 1600m and 2200m, a size 2 wet slab on a E/SE facing feature at 2200m and even a rider triggered storm slab on an E facing feature, likely from early in the day.
Snowpack Summary
Heavy rain fell to ridgetop Saturday before finally turning to snow mid-morning. Now 5 to 25cm of new snow rests on 10 to 40 cm of rain saturated snow. The mid-March crust/facet complex is now down 50-70cm. It's thought that the warmth is helping to strengthen the bond at this interface, but snowpack testing is still producing sudden failures 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.