Avalanche Forecast

High - The weather pattern is stable

Wednesday: Mainly cloudy with isolated flurries and a trace new snow. Winds light from the west. Freezing level to 900 metres with alpine temperatures to -6. Thursday: Mainly cloudy with isolated flurries and a trace of new snow. Winds light from the southwest. Freezing level around 900 metres with alpine temperatures of -6. Friday: Mainly cloudy with isolated flurries and a trace of new snow. Winds light to moderate from the southwest. Freezing level to 1100 metres with alpine temperatures to -2

Reports from Monday include a MIN observation of several recent Size 1 avalanches having released naturally near ridgetop on north to northwest aspects in the Whistler area. The report also alludes to skier traffic producing results up to Size 2 the same day. Other recent reports include a Size 2 natural storm slab avalanche that occurred on Sunday near Blackcomb. The crown was 50-100 cm high, on a west/southwest aspect near 2100 m. While avalanche activity as a direct result of the storm has abated, evidence of the recent natural avalanche cycle is widespread and should indicate some of the human-triggering potential that still exists in our snowpack.

A highly variable 70-140 cm of storm snow now forms our upper snowpack, the product of a storm that rapidly blanketed the region late last week. Wind slabs developed on a range of aspects at exposed higher elevations in the days after the storm and these wind slabs currently form our primary avalanche hazard. Aside from wind slabs, the storm snow has been described as 'right side up' (lower density at the top) and is settling quickly with the aid of continued mild temperatures. While this inspires some confidence, a number of easy sudden planar results on density changes in the storm snow were observed on a northwest aspect in the Spearhead range on Monday, suggesting that investigation of the storm snow is still called for in bigger terrain. The bond of our storm snow to the varied surfaces below it has been improving, with this interface producing moderate to hard and generally resistant snowpack test results. The mid and lower snowpack are generally well settled but still feature a number of facet and crust layers that warrant long term monitoring.