Kootenay Boundary

New snow from earlier in the week will take a couple of days to settle and bond. In the meantime also pay attention to the direction of the wind as you travel through wind exposed areas – there is a lot of snow available to build wind slabs.

20-30 cm of new snow is being redistributed by southwest winds and sits on top of previously formed wind slabs in exposed terrain.

In terrain sheltered from the wind, small surface hoar crystals may be found 50-90 cm from the surface. At a similar depth, you may also find a melt-freeze crust on sun-exposed slopes and below 1900 m.

Deeper weak layers in the snowpack have not recently produced avalanches, but they may become reactive again if there is a rapid change in the weather.

The lower snowpack contains weak and faceted grains.

On Tuesday there were a few reports of skier triggered storm slab avalanches to size 1 and 1.5. As well, there were explosives controlled avalanches to size 2 and 2.5 on southerly aspects between 1900 and 2100m.

Wednesday Night

Mainly cloudy with clear periods. Light to moderate southwest ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature around -7 °C.

Thursday

Mix of sun and cloud. Light to moderate southwest wind. Treeline temperatures around -4 °C.

Friday

Cloudy with scattered flurries, accumulation 2-5 cm. Moderate southwest ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature around -5 °C.

Saturday

Mostly cloudy. Light west ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature around -6 °C.

More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.

• Continue to make conservative terrain choices while the storm snow settles and stabilizes.
• Watch for newly formed and reactive wind slabs as you transition into wind affected terrain.