Avalanche forecast

Kootenay Boundary

Jan 31 – Feb 1, 2015Avalanche Canada
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Archived · expired 12 years ago

Avalanche danger

Mon
Tue
Alpine
1 · Low
Treeline
1 · Low
Below
1 · Low
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Highlights

Cooling temperatures and a strong melt freeze crust on the surface have made triggering slab avalanches unlikely in all but isolated areas.

Avalanche problems

  • Persistent Slabs

    • Alpine
    • Treeline
    • Below treeline
    Likelihood
    Unlikely
    Size
    3–5
    Triggering a persistent slab is less likely since the surface crust formed and temperatures dropped. However there may still be potential to trigger a weak layer from a thin spot, especially at upper elevations on northerly aspects.

Confidence

Fair - Due to the number of field observations

Weather Forecast

The freezing level should be dropping to valley bottoms again overnight and is not expected to rise above 600m until possibly Tuesday afternoon. 2-5 cm of snow is expected on Sunday with a high of around -4 at treeline. Similar temperatures are expected for Monday along with a further 2-6 cm of accumulations. Warmer temperatures and light snowfall amounts of 1-2cm are possible on Tuesday, and may fall as rain at lower elevations below treeline.

Avalanche Summary

No new avalanches have been reported.

Snowpack Summary

Recent sunny weather and high freezing levels have created a mostly supportive widespread melt-freeze crust thats been reported on all aspects up to 2400m. A widespread new layer of surface hoar up to 15mm in size is said to be developing on top of this crust. The mid-January weak layer of buried surface hoar is down about 20-50 cm and continues to give planar results in snow profile tests. The mid-December crust/facet/surface hoar layer can generally be found down around 50cm deep in low snowpack areas, and about 100cm down in deeper snowpack areas. There may still be potential to trigger this deeper layer from shallow spots and in very isolated areas.

Regions covered