Avalanche Forecast

Moderate - Timing, track, or intensity of incoming weather system is uncertain

A weak ridge of high pressure is building over the interior ranges. Some periods of flurries or light snow can be expected overnight with moderate alpine winds from the northwest. Alpine temperatures should be around -10 on Friday with mostly cloudy conditions. The next storm is forecast to move inland from the coast on Saturday. There is some uncertainty regarding the timing and intensity of this next storm. Today it looked like the storm may arrive in the interior as early as Saturday morning, resulting in 3-5 cm combined with strong southerly winds during the day. If this timing holds true, expect another 5-10 cm on Sunday with strong southwest winds.

We had a report from Valemount that in most areas the recent storm snow was mostly unconsolidated, and not reacting as a slab yet. In some areas the storm snow has been pressed into a slab by the winds and is very easy to trigger where it is sitting on a widespread layer of surface hoar. Expect soft storm slabs to continue to be triggered by human activity. We also had a report on Thursday from the Wells Grey area of a skier remotely triggering a size 2.0 slide that was 35 cm deep from 20 metres away. This avalanche was 80 metres wide and released on buried surface hoar in the alpine. This group also reported numerous whumpfs during the day. These reports suggest that there is some variability across the region. I suspect that the south and west of the region may have more storm snow, and the storm snow may have settled into a more cohesive slab in those areas.

The recent storm snow total is now 10-30 cm. that is sitting on buried surface hoar and near surface facets. Some operations reported a thin freezing drizzle crust on the snow surface before the Wednesday morning snow arrived. Storm slabs and isolated wind slabs overlie old surfaces including surface hoar, facets, and possible sun crusts on steep southerly aspects. Below this, the upper pack is mostly drying out (through faceting). In general, the mid and lower snowpack are strong, with any weak layers considered dormant for now. Snowpack depths are variable and shallow snowpack areas may have weak facetted crystals near the ground.