A crisp, cold weekend to finish November.
The storm snow that arrived last weekend is largely still in good shape following light winds most of the week but watch for isolated windslabs in steep alpine terrain.
Isolated wind slabs exist in steep alpine terrain.
While the winds have been generally light since the snow fell, they have become variable in direction with winds shifting from west to north Thursday evening.
Sunshine's snow safety team reported a sz 1.5 slab above the Bourgeau Left ice climb which originated near ridge top but did not make it over the cliff late Thurdsay. Work in Delerium Dive produced several small wind slabs with the largest at sz 1.5 failing on basal facets in a thin area. Work in the South-side Chutes produced similar results to sz 1.5 however slabs were failing on a buried solar crust.
A trace of new snow arrived Friday morning to sit atop the 20-40cm that fell last weekend. Variable winds have moved this snow to form isolated slabs in the alpine.
A thin sun crust / surface hoar interface sits immediately below the storm snow.
Slighlty deeper in the upper snowpack and below ~ 2300m a rain crust gains thickness with descent.
The mid and lower snowpack is generally well settled for this time of year with treeline total snow depths from 70-100cm.
A ridge of high pressure is building over the area Friday and will hold through the weekend with mainly sunny skies.
Northwest winds will be light through Sunday before increasing late in the day as clouds arrive.
Treeline temperatures are forecast to stay near -15C overnight into Saturday before becoming steady near -12C through Sunday.
Click here for Environment Canada links to weather tables for the region.
