Avalanche Forecast
Regions: Birkenhead, Duffey, South Chilcotin, South Coast Inland, Stein, Taseko.
While pushing into bigger terrain steer clear of wind drifts and firm wind slabs that overly a generally shallow, and unconsolidated, weak snowpack.
Confidence
High
Avalanche Summary
No new avalanche activity has been reported over the last few days.
If you head out into the mountains, please share your photos or observations on the Mountain Information Network. Your information helps us understand local conditions!
Snowpack Summary
Cold temperatures continue to facet the upper snowpack. Surface snow is generally low-density and unconsolidated, making it ideal to be redistributed by the wind.
Buried by recent snowfalls is a layer of large, feathery surface hoar crystals. Reports suggest it is buried by 15 to 30 cm of low-density snow.
The lower snowpack consists of weak facetted crystals and even depth hoar in shallow areas.
In general, the snowpack is highly variable, ranging from 50 to 200 cm around treeline.
Weather Summary
Tuesday night
Clearing, with isolated flurries. Temperatures around -25 C and light Northeast winds in the alpine.
Wednesday
Sunny, and no precipitation. Temperatures -20 to -30 C and light Northeast winds.
Thursday
Sunny with periods of cloud, and no precipitation. Temperatures -15 to -25 C and light Northeast winds.
Friday
Cloudy with trace amounts of snow. Temperatures of -5 to -15 C, and moderate Southwest winds.
ThursdayMore details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.
Terrain and Travel Advice
- Expect slab conditions to change drastically as you move into wind exposed terrain.
- If triggered, wind slabs avalanches may step down to deeper layers resulting in larger avalanches.
Avalanche Problems
Wind Slabs
Winds are redistributing the recent low-density snow into potentially reactive windslabs. With cold temperatures windslabs will likely take longer then usual to stabilize and bond to the underlaying surfaces.
Remember that small wind slabs on the surface could scrub down to deeper weak layers in the snowpack, resulting in bigger then expected avalanches.
Aspects: All aspects.
Elevations: Alpine, Treeline.
Likelihood: Unlikely - Possible
Expected Size: 1 - 2
Deep Persistent Slabs
A weak layer at the bottom of the snowpack is most prominent in areas with shallower snow depths. Primarily a concern in areas where a cohesive upper snow pack exists above the weak layer (like large wind affected slopes).
Aspects: All aspects.
Elevations: Alpine, Treeline.
Likelihood: Unlikely - Possible
Expected Size: 1.5 - 3