Summary
Confidence
Poor - Timing, track, or intensity of incoming weather is uncertain on Friday
Weather Forecast
Thursday: Overcast with sunny breaks and little to no precipitation during the day. Winds light-moderate from the west and southwest and alpine temperatures of -4. Freezing level rising to 1200m.Friday: Thursday night into Friday a warm front associated with a Pineapple Express weather system will affect portions of the region. Unseasonably warm temperatures, strong southwesterly winds are forecast. Depending on the how the system tracks across the province, heavy precipitation is possible. Freezing level 1400mSaturday: Light to moderate precipitation, winds light southwest and freezing level of 1900m.
Avalanche Summary
Recent reports indicate whumpfing and cracking below the storm snow and also of ski cuts, skier remote and natural loose and slab avalanches to size 1.5 isolated to the storm snow.
Snowpack Summary
In much of the region, up to 65 cm recent snow overlies weak interfaces buried in mid-February (mainly surface hoar/ sun crust layers). The storm slab above these interfaces has the potential for wide propagations and surprisingly large avalanches, especially where winds have shifted the snow into slabs in the lee of terrain breaks. A thin freezing rain/rime crust formed on Friday, which is now buried by about 15-30cm snow. In the Rossland Range, surface hoar which was buried mid-week is 20-30 cm down and exhibits easy, sudden results in snowpack tests. As more snow builds over this layer, it could become touchy.Older snowpack weaknesses buried in the upper snowpack (Feb 4th and Jan 23 surface hoar/facet/sun crust layers) are still being tracked by professionals. There is some potential for triggering one of these deeper layers with a large trigger like an avalanche in motion, or from a thin-spot trigger point. The lower snowpack is generally well settled.
mbender,
Avalanche Canada
