Avalanche Forecast

Fair - Timing or intensity of solar radiation is uncertain

Broken cloud is forecast for Sunday with a chance of light rainfall in the north of the region near Revelstoke. Light rainfall is forecast on Monday, once again, with the highest amounts occurring in the north. Freezing levels are expected to sit at about 3000m for both days with moderate and southwest ridgetop winds.

Widespread loose and wind slab activity to size 2 was observed on Friday. I expect a shift to more widespread wet snow instabilities with warm temperatures forecast for Sunday and Monday.

On Thursday night, light to locally moderate amounts of snow fell forming wind slabs that most likely settled considerably or turned to wet slabs with warming on Saturday. The recently fallen snow overlies well settled powder, melt-freeze crust sandwiches and wet grains at treeline and in the alpine while warm temperatures continue to penetrate and weaken the isothermal snowpack at lower elevations. The mid-February buried surface hoar layer is down about 140-220 cm. The likelihood of avalanches failing on this layer has been very low due to cooler temperatures, however it may wake up with warming and the consequence continues to be very large destructive avalanches. Cornices in the region are very large and have may become weak with spring temperatures.