Avalanche Forecast

The arrival of a Pacific frontal system marks the change to a wetter weather pattern.  

SATURDAY NIGHT: Periods of snow, 10-15 cm, 30-50 km/h southerly wind, alpine low temperature -4 C, freezing level at 1000 m.

SUNDAY: Snow, 10-20 cm, 30-50 km/h southwesterly wind, alpine high temperature -3 C, freezing level at 1200 m.

MONDAY: Snow, 10-20 cm, 40-60 km/h southerly wind, alpine high temperature +2 C, freezing level at 1700 m.

TUESDAY: Snow, 10-20 cm, 30-50 km/h southwesterly wind, alpine high temperature +1 C, freezing level at 1600 m.

On Friday, several natural loose wet avalanches up to size 2 were reported on solar aspects. A natural cornice fall size 1.5 was also observed on a north-east slope but did not trigger any slab on the slope below.

Storm snow is covering a variety of surfaces including the widespread mid-February crust, wind affected snow and pockets of wind slab in exposed high elevation terrain, a suncrust on solar aspects, low density facetted snow on northerly slopes and spotty surface hoar in very sheltered lower elevations. It is expected this new snow will not bond to the older surfaces.

A weak crust layer from mid-February is now down around 20 cm in the north and as deep as 70 cm in the south. Also, a weak crust/facet/surface hoar interface from late-January is buried down 40-100cm. This layer was most reactive between 1700 m and 2000 m in the north of the region. While this layer has been dormant in most of the region lately, large loads such as heavy snowfalls and cornice falls could wake it up and produce very large avalanches.

• Watch for fresh storm slabs building throughout the day.
• Watch for changing conditions today, storm slabs may become increasingly reactive.
• Storm snow and wind is forming touchy slabs. Use caution in lee areas in the alpine and treeline.
• Storm slabs in motion may step down to deeper layers resulting in large avalanches.