Avalanche Forecast
Regions: Birkenhead, Duffey, South Chilcotin, South Coast Inland, Stein, Taseko.
The snowpack is generally weak, facetted, and lacks cohesion. Assess for surface instabilities that have the potential to step down to deeper weak layers.
Confidence
Moderate
Avalanche Summary
No notable recent avalanches have been reported.
Please continue to post your observations and photos to the Mountain Information Network.
Snowpack Summary
The snowpack is unusually shallow and has a layer deep in the snowpack made up of weak facets and depth hoar. At lower elevations and shallower areas, the snowpack remains mostly unconsolidated.
The height of snow is roughly 50 to 200 cm at treeline.
Weather Summary
Thursday night
Cloudy with light snow, up to 5 cm. Temperatures -10 to -20 C and mostly light SW winds in the alpine.
Friday
Cloudy with a trace of snow. Temperatures of -5 to -15 C, and moderate southwest winds in the alpine.
Saturday
Cloudy with snow, up to 10 cm. Temperatures 0 to -5 C and strong south winds in the alpine.
Sunday
Cloudy with light snow, up to 5cm. Temperatures 0 to -5 C and strong south winds in the alpine.
More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.
Terrain and Travel Advice
- Avoid steep, rocky, and wind effected areas where triggering slabs is more likely.
- If triggered, loose dry avalanches may step down to deeper layers resulting in large avalanches.
- This avalanche problem is difficult to trigger but if so, consequences are serious.
Avalanche Problems
Deep Persistent Slabs
Much of the lower snowpack is made up of weak, unconsolidated facets and depth hoar crystals. Steer clear of large slopes with a cohesive slab on the surface, likely created by previous wind loading. Any small avalanche or sluff in steep terrain has the potential to step down to this deeper layer, resulting in a large avalanche.
Aspects: All aspects.
Elevations: Alpine, Treeline.
Likelihood: Unlikely - Possible
Expected Size: 1.5 - 3