Avalanche Forecast

Good

Friday: Precipitation is expected to taper off to scattered light showers under an unstable airmass, however strong southwesterly winds are expected to continue. Freezing levels are expected to hover around 500-700 m. Saturday and Sunday: A fairly weak system is expected to arrive on the north coast on Saturday bringing light precipitation to the area. This system will be through by Sunday but isolated flurries will likely prevail under a very unstable airmass. Strong southerly winds and freezing level around 500-1000m are expected for both days.

Observations from Wednesday are limited, but reports suggest that fresh wind slabs are touchy with a few small skier-triggered 10-40cm thick slabs on wind-exposed rolls treeline and below.

Intense wind-loading was observed at all elevations on Wednesday with snow surfaces either getting scoured or packed into hard wind slabs. Warm temperatures and sun-exposure have moistened the surface snow on all aspects below around 1000m and some areas as high as 1600m. Recent snowpack tests on a northeast aspect at 1480m gave several resistant planar shears the recent storm snow and two hard resistant planar shears down 37cm and 70cm where the total snowpack depth was 5m. The mid February interface, down around 60cm, is variable and generally consists of a strong melt freeze crust below 1000m. Above that elevation, expect to find buried facets, and/or surface hoar (in more sheltered areas), and/or a sun crust on southern aspects. The surface hoar is not widespread but is responsible for much of the larger avalanches that occurred earlier this week. This layer should be on your radar, as it may be susceptible to rider triggers.