Avalanche Forecast

Issued: Feb 26th, 2022 4:00PM

The alpine rating is high, the treeline rating is high, and the below treeline rating is high. Known problems include Storm Slabs.

Avalanche Canada dboucher, Avalanche Canada

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Sea To Sky.

Significative storm slabs will continue to develop throughout the day. It is a good day to make conservative choices and stick to simple, safe and non-avalanche terrain.

Summary

Confidence

Moderate - Forecast snowfall amounts are uncertain. We are confident the likelihood of avalanche will increase with the arrival of the forecast weather.

Weather Forecast

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

SATURDAY NIGHT: Snow, heavy at times, 25-35 cm, 40-60 km/h southerly wind, alpine low temperature -5 C, freezing level at 1000 m.

SUNDAY: Snow, heavy at times, 20-30 cm, 30-50 km/h southwesterly wind, alpine high temperature -4 C, freezing level at 1200 m.

MONDAY: Snow, heavy at times, 40-50 cm, 40-60 km/h southerly wind, alpine high temperature 0 C, freezing level at 1600 m.

TUESDAY: Snow, 10-15 cm, 30-50 km/h southwesterly wind, alpine high temperature 0 C, freezing level at 1600 m.

Avalanche Summary

No new avalanche was reported on Friday.

Snowpack Summary

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 almost certain that all this new snow will not bond to the older surfaces.

A crust/facet/surface hoar interface formed late-January is buried down 40-100 cm. This layer was most reactive between 1700 m and 2000 m. 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.

Terrain and Travel

  • Storm slab size and sensitivity to triggering will likely increase through the day.
  • As the storm slab problem gets trickier, the easy solution is to choose more conservative terrain.
  • Storm slabs in motion may step down to deeper layers resulting in large avalanches.
  • Avoid all avalanche terrain during periods of heavy snowfall.

Problems

Storm Slabs

An icon showing Storm Slabs

Significative storm slabs will continue to develop throughout the day. It is almost certain that this new snow will not bond to the variety of older surfaces and will produce a natural avalanche cycle. It is a good day to make conservative choices and stick to simple and safe terrain.

Aspects: All aspects.

Elevations: All elevations.

Likelihood

Very Likely

Expected Size

2 - 3

Valid until: Feb 27th, 2022 4:00PM

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