Avalanche Forecast

Moderate

On Friday expect 5-15cm on new snow, strong southerly winds and freezing levels at about 800m. On Saturday, the region will see another 5cm of new snow with mainly overcast skies forecast for Sunday. Winds for the weekend will be mainly light from the north while freezing levels hover around 500m.

In recent days observations were limited due to stormy weather; however, professional operators in the region were still reporting fairly widespread explosive and naturally triggered large storm and persistent slab avalanches. Many of the avalanches were suspected to have failed on the January 9th surface hoar. Forecast cooling and should help gradually reduce natural avalanche activity. But, for the short term storm slabs will likely remain sensitive to light loads, while potential remains for very large persistent slab avalanche activity.

A warm, wet and windy storm has formed deep, dense and reactive storm slabs at higher elevations while rain has saturated the snowpack below treeline. The snow line fluctuated a great deal during the storm which dropped around 80mm of precipitation in the Terrace area (and slightly less in the mountains around Stewart) over the past 4 days. The January 9th surface hoar/facet layer is down 70-150 cm in most places, and is a concern on all aspects and elevations. Around the same depth you may also find a surface hoar/facet interface from around New Years. The hope is the combination of heavy storm loading and warm temperatures will have flushed out these weak layers in many areas, but that remains to be seen. In the wake of the storm, there will be a lot of uncertainty regarding the reactivity and distribution of this destructive persistent avalanche problem. Additionally, the snowpack will require time to adjust to the stress of heavy storm loading. A very conservative approach to mountain travel is still required.