Avalanche Forecast

Fair - Due to limited field observations on Friday

Overnight and Friday: Light to moderate precipitation overnight bringing 5-10 mm that should fall as snow above 800 metres elevation by late morning. Winds light westerly and alpine temperatures about -7.0Saturday:Light precipitation under cloudy skies, with light westerly winds and -10.0 in the alpine.Sunday: A Pacific frontal system is expected to move onto the coast during the day on Sunday. Expect a strong Southwest flow with moderate to heavy precipitation amounts.

Some natural cornice falls were reported up to size 2.0 after the recent very strong wind event. Some explosive controlled stiff wind slabs were reported up to size 1.5 from the Whistler area.

The recent very strong wind event has caused extensive wind scouring in the alpine and at treeline. Ski penetration is limited to about 10 cm above a stiff buried wind slab. Foot penetration may still be up to 70 cms as the wind slab is not able to carry the weight of a person without skis. The recent storm snow (up to about 130 cms) appears to be bridging above the early November weak layer, and we are not seeing deep releases down to the rain/ice crust. There is not much discussion about surface hoar that was buried last week, and we are not getting reports about test results on that layer. Professionals are concerned about the early November rain crust. If this deep persistent weak layer (DPWL) becomes reactive, the consequences will be very large destructive avalanches. The crust may be buried between 100-200 cms depending on the total depth of the snowpack in your area. The crust may be a bigger problem where it has a layer of facetted crystals above, rather than where it is like a laminated sandwich of crusts and facets. If that sounds too technical for you, then the take home is that this is not an easy problem to gauge when or where it might wake up.