Avalanche Forecast

Good

Sunday: Mainly sunny with cloudy periods in the afternoon. Temperatures should remain cool with alpine highs near -8. Winds are moderate from the northwest. Monday: Mainly sunny. An above freezing level develops through the day between 1500 and 2500 m. Winds are moderate to strong from the northwest. Tuesday: Mainly sunny. The above freezing layer strengthens with alpine temperatures rising to +5. Winds are moderate to strong from the northwest.  

There are no new reports of natural or human triggered avalanches in the region. However, there was an accidentally triggered size 2 avalanche in the Spearhead Range near Whistler on Thursday. A thin wind slab was triggered near ridge top, which stepped down to a buried weak layer approximately 100 cm deep further down the slope. This event was suspected to have released on the early January surface hoar layer, which is also present in this region.

Up to 15 cm of low density new snow sits on the previous 40-80 cm of storm snow from earlier in the week. Northerly outflow winds have produced pockets of new wind slabs in south facing terrain, and old dense wind slabs lurk below the surface on northerly aspects. A layer of surface hoar, facetted snow, and /or a crust exists at the base of the recent storm snow. Snowpack tests show that this interface is susceptible to human triggering and has the potential to propagate widely. No significant weaknesses have been reported recently below this in the mid snowpack layers. Near the base of the snowpack, a crust/facet layer exists, which is now unlikely to be triggered, except perhaps by heavy triggers in steep, shallow, rocky terrain where more facetting has taken place.