We're almost through the drought. We'll see some flurries hopefully arrive over the next few days which will perk up the travel conditions and make it atleast look winter again.
Weather Forecast
There's light at the end of the tunnel! Some forecasts are saying up to 8cm of snow tomorrow. Winds will be out of the SW, and probably reach speeds of 45km/hr at treeline. Temperatures will range from -15 tonight, to -11 tomorrow afternoon. There is some more snow expected down the road, but we'll have to be patient. It arrives in small increments with a grand total of 20cm by wed.
Avalanche Summary
Like the rest of western Canada, we haven't seen an avalanche for over a week now.
Snowpack Summary
Our snowpack is looking a little worse for wear these days. The winds, temperatures and lack of snow have left a variety of surface layers- none of which are conducive to good skiing. Valley bottom has decomposing surface hoar that is covered with a dusting of snow from the past 24-36 hours. Treeline is a widespread wind slab surface covering the crusts from late november. The alpine is also severely wind affected and on any windward aspect its blown to gravel or the old crusts. The good news is that most trouble layers have temporarily glued themselves together and aren't posing a huge avalanche risk.
Problems
Persistent Slabs
Persistent Slab avalanches are the release of a cohesive layer of snow (a slab) in the middle to upper snowpack, when the bond to an underlying persistent weak layer breaks. Persistent layers include: surface hoar, depth hoar, near-surface facets, or faceted snow. Persistent weak layers can continue to produce avalanches for days, weeks or even months, making them especially dangerous and tricky. As additional snow and wind events build a thicker slab on top of the persistent weak layer, this avalanche problem may develop into a Deep Persistent Slab.