Another good day for conservative terrain choices. The best skiing and riding can be found in sheltered locations at and below treeline.
Weather Forecast
A mixed bag of weather today. We'll start off with sun and cloud and should see flurries without real significant accumulations. Freezing levels will be at valley bottom, an alpine high of -10c and moderate westerly winds. Our next storm will start this evening, then ramping up with 20cm falling by tomorrow afternoon and 40-50cm by Thursday pm.
Snowpack Summary
Another 22cm on the boards yesterday morning bringing the weekly snowfall total to 160cm! Previous strong south winds created wind slabs in the alpine and exposed areas at TL. Storm snow has been settling out, however, we're still observing failures at these interfaces, with potential to step down to our plethora of persistent weak layers.
Avalanche Summary
Several naturals in the HWY corridor yesterday up to size 3. Avalanches reported from the backcountry 2 days ago with crowns 1.5m deep and up to size 2.5. On Mcgill Shoulder yesterday there was a skier accidental size 2, 30-50cm deep, 50m wide and ran for 300m in length. Significant sluffing was also observed in the Bostock drainage.
Confidence
Due to the number of field observations
Problems
Storm Slabs
Storm Slab avalanches are the release of a cohesive layer (a slab) of new snow that breaks within new snow or on the old snow surface. Storm-slabs typically last between a few hours and few days (following snowfall). Storm-slabs that form over a persistent weak layer (surface hoar, depth hoar, or near-surface facets) may be termed Persistent Slabs or may develop into Persistent Slabs.
Persistent Slabs
Persistent Slab avalanches are the release of a cohesive layer of snow (a slab) in the middle to upper snowpack, when the bond to an underlying persistent weak layer breaks. Persistent layers include: surface hoar, depth hoar, near-surface facets, or faceted snow. Persistent weak layers can continue to produce avalanches for days, weeks or even months, making them especially dangerous and tricky. As additional snow and wind events build a thicker slab on top of the persistent weak layer, this avalanche problem may develop into a Deep Persistent Slab.