Avalanche Forecast

Moderate -

Monday: A mix of sun and cloud. Winds light from the west. Freezing level to 3000 metres with alpine temperatures around +4.Tuesday: A mix of sun and cloud. Winds light to moderate from the southwest. Freezing level to 3400 metres with alpine temperatures of +5Wednesday: A mix of sun and cloud. Strong southwest winds. Freezing level around 3400 metres with alpine temperatures of +5

Explosives control work in the Fernie area on Saturday yielded a few results up to to Size 1 within the wind-affected surface snow. Friday's control work produced numerous storm slab results generally from Size 2-2.5 with two Size 3 results generating from storm loaded north to northeast aspects. Earlier reports from Thursday indicated widespread natural, skier controlled, as well as remotely triggered avalanche activity to size 1.5. One Size 3 avalanche ran naturally in steep alpine terrain in the late afternoon on Thursday.

Strong ridgetop winds have led to roughly 10 cm of wind scoured and pressed new snow at the surface, leaving very little in the way of ski penetration at treeline and above. Below around 1700 metres, the supportive, wind-affected snow gives way to a breakable rain crust. Beneath these variable surfaces lies an estimated metre of storm snow from storms over the past two weekends. The upper half of this layer was deposited as heavy, moist snow, while the lower half is considerably drier and less dense. This 'upside down' storm snow layer lies above a range of previous surfaces that includes wind affected surfaces, a layer of surface hoar in sheltered areas, facets, and/or a thin sun crust. The bond between this earlier storm snow and the old surface is suspected to be improving slowly while hard conditions at the current surface may be diminishing the effect of human triggering. The mid and lower snowpack are generally well settled and stable but isolated basal weaknesses may exist in shallow snowpack areas.