New snow may be hiding buried wind slabs in the alpine and treeline.
Be cautious in areas that look wind loaded, pillowed, or extra thick.
Recent winds formed slabs at and below ridgetops in atypical areas. These slabs could be more reactive on slopes where they overlie a weak layer of surface hoar and/or a crust.
A few small (size 1 to 1.5), isolated wind slab avalanches were observed in alpine terrain across the region on Wednesday and Thursday.
10 cm of new snow is now resting on a previous 20 cm that was redistributed by strong northeast wind. This upper 30 cm of recent snow may bond poorly to underlying layers of surface hoar, faceted snow, and wind-pressed snow.
A prominent crust is found 30 to 50 cm deep. It extends up to 1900 m in the Cariboos and up to 1400 m around Pine Pass. At this point, the only potential concern with this layer is for areas east of Quesnel and Williams Lake, where a layer of small surface hoar has been observed near the crust.
The midpack is reportedly strong and bonded.
Saturday Night
Cloudy with up to 5 cm of snow, southwest alpine wind 20-40 km/h, treeline temperature -8 °C.
Sunday
Cloudy with up to 3 cm snow, southwest alpine wind 20-30 km/h, treeline temperature -5 °C.
Monday
Cloudy with up to 3 cm of snow, southwest alpine wind 30-40 km/h, treeline temperature -5 °C, except 0 °C around Wells/ Barkerville with an AFL to 1500 m.
Tuesday
Cloudy with up to 5 cm of snow, southwest alpine wind 20-50 km/h, treeline temperature -12 °C, except 0 °C around Wells/ Barkerville with an AFL to 1500 m.
More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.
