Avalanche Forecast

Fair - Due to variable snopack conditions

Tuesday: Snow flurries with no significant accumulation expected. Strong NW ridgetop winds. Alpine temperatures falling rapidly to around -15C by the afternoon. Wednesday: Dry. Light to moderate northerly winds. Alpine temperatures around -16C. Thursday: Dry. Winds becoming westerly. Remaining cold, but a mild inversion should elevate alpine temperatures to around -10C.

Natural avalanches occurred in the Dogtooth range on Sunday up to size 2.0 at treeline on North through East aspects.

The Purcell region has been getting less snow in the recent storms than the Selkirks. This means in most areas we have not reached critical threshold on a layer of large surface hoar and near surface facets that was buried mid-December. An exception to this is in the Dogtooth range, where avalanches to size 2 have been releasing on this layer. In most areas the mid-December surface hoar layer currently lies about 20cm below the snow surface. Some areas have a sun crust in the alpine on steep south and west aspects. There is a rain crust that is buried between 40-55 cm in some areas that reaches up to about 2200 metres. Lower in the snowpack, the mid-layers are well-consolidated and strong. Near the base of the snowpack there are a few layers that have the potential to wake up with a really big storm or very heavy loads. These include a surface hoar layer from early November, a crust/facet combo from October and the interface on steep glaciated terrain with snow that did not melt over the summer.