Avalanche Forecast

Fair - Timing, track, or intensity of incoming weather system is uncertain on Thursday

Overnight and Thursday: Freezing level dropping to valley bottom overnight. Southwest winds developing during the day as cloud cover increases and freezing levels climb to about 2000 metresFriday: Freezing level dipping to about 1600 metres overnight and rising up to near 2000 metres during the day. Strong Westerly winds and light precipitation.Saturday: Not much drop in freezing levels overnight. Cloudy with a chance of broken skies. Light precipitation and moderate Westerly winds.

No new avalanches reported. I suspect that loose moist or wet snow may release naturally on solar exposed terrain. Cornices have been reported to be very large and may be weakened by exposure to the strong sun of April.

Solar radiation and high freezing levels have created new melt-freeze crusts on Southerly aspects. The 20-40cm of recent new snow sits on top of a thick sun crust on solar aspects. 70-90 cm of settling storm snow from the past week rests on a graupel layer that can be found in much of the region. This makes for around 90 cm on top of the mid march crust at this point. This crust exists on all aspects below 2000m and on solar aspects in the high alpine. North of Sparwood and in the Crowsnest Pass area, the buried crust seems more specific to previously sun-exposed slopes. The deep facet/crust persistent weakness buried at the beginning of February (now down 140 to 170cm) seems unlikely to trigger in areas where the hard, supportive crust exists. No matter where you are in the region, this weakness should stay on your radar as any activity at this interface would be large and destructive. Possible triggers include a large cornice fall, a large input in a thin snowpack area or solar warming.