Regions
Northwest Coastal.
Watch for touchy fresh storm slabs to develop through the day.
Weather Forecast
The next storm is forecast to wash over the North Coast on Tuesday before a ridge builds bringing drier conditions. Up to 5cm is expected overnight Monday near Terrace with another 10cm forecast by Wednesday morning. Coastal areas could see almost twice as much during through the storm. Thursday is expected to be mainly dry. Freezing levels on Tuesday will fall from 1500m to 500m as you move inland, with a cooling trend expected for the entire region through the forecast period. Winds will be strong from the south on Tuesday becoming light by Wednesday and variable by Thursday.
Avalanche Summary
We've receive reports of several natural and skier triggered avalanches ranging from size 1-2 from across the region. It sounds like the surface hoar is starting to wake up!
Snowpack Summary
The forecast snow will fall on a complex upper snow pack. The top 100 cm consists of at least 3 distinct buried surface hoar layers, weak faceted snow, and possibly thin sun crusts on some solar aspects. Recent winds have also wreaked havoc in wind exposed terrain producing hard or stiff slabs and fresh soft slabs in lee and cross-loaded terrain, and scouring windward slopes at ridgetop.
Problems
Storm Slabs
Storm Slab avalanches are the release of a cohesive layer (a slab) of new snow that breaks within new snow or on the old snow surface. Storm-slabs typically last between a few hours and few days (following snowfall). Storm-slabs that form over a persistent weak layer (surface hoar, depth hoar, or near-surface facets) may be termed Persistent Slabs or may develop into Persistent Slabs.