Avalanche Forecast

Poor - Due to the number of field observations

Tonight and Tuesday: Periods of snow with accumulations of 10-20 cm by Tuesday evening. The freezing level should remain relatively low with temperatures at 1500 m around -4. Ridge winds should be moderate from the west-northwest. Wednesday and Thursday: Continued moderate to heavy precipitation but temperatures also rise. We could see 30cm of snow each day (or more in some areas). The freezing level could climb to 1500 m.

One observer in the Raft Mountain area observed several small natural avalanches and easily triggered a few more on steep road banks on Saturday. There are no new observations from higher terrain but given the amount of new snow in the past few days it's likely that there was some sort of natural avalanche cycle. Natural avalanche activity should taper off as conditions dry out later this week, but rider triggering will remain a concern.

This is an estimate of what the snowpack may look like based of a few observations and previous weather. If you plan on riding in avalanche terrain be sure to supplement this with your own observations and please pass along any data you collect ([email protected])Around 40-50 cm of recent storm snow sits on weak layer of surface hoar and/or a sun crust. Below this 20-30cm of sugary facetted snow sits on a solid rain crust that formed a few weeks ago is now down 50-80 cm. The average snowpack depth at treeline is around 70-100 cm. Recent strong and variable winds have probably created dense wind slabs in exposed terrain and resulted in variable snow distribution. At lower elevations expect travel to be difficult and potentially hazardous as many early season hazards are exposed or lightly buried (stumps, logs, rocks, open creeks, etc).