Avalanche Forecast

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Snow or flurries combined with strong westerly winds continuing on Sunday night and then ending Monday morning. 3-5 cm expected by late Monday morning. Moderate northwest winds and a chance of broken skies during the day Monday. No new precipitation expected on Tuesday, as light winds and sunny skies are forecast. Snow starting on Wednesday as the next storm moves down the coast from the northwest.

No new reports from the alpine. Duffey Lake highways patrol recorded numerous size 2.0 and one size 3.0 storm slab avalanches on Friday.

We received 10-15 cm of new snow over the weekend, with slightly cooler temperatures in the north of the region. This added to the developing storm slab that resulted from 30-50 cm of new snow in the alpine in the North of the region, and 20-30 cm in the South of the region on Friday. Un-consolidated snow around trees has resulted in an early season tree-well problem. This new snow has settled into a storm slab on all aspects in the alpine and at treeline, and has resulted in natural avalanche activity. Terrain that was loaded by southwest winds during the storm may have developed deep pockets of wind transported snow. Average alpine snow depths are about 150 cm but may be quite variable due to winds during recent loading. A thick crust can likely be found in the mid-pack down 50-70 cm at treeline elevations or deeper in the alpine. Buried surface hoar has also been reported in the early season snowpack. There is only about 20 cm at highway elevation in the Coquihalla area, and access to higher elevations has been reported to be difficult. There is closer to 70 cm at highway elevations in the Duffey lake and Joffre lakes area. Please post your observations to the MIN.