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Avalanche Forecast

Archived

Mar 3rd, 2025–Mar 4th, 2025

Alpine
Natural avalanches possible, human triggered probable.
Treeline
Natural avalanches unlikely, human triggered possible.
Below Treeline
Natural avalanches unlikely.
Alpine
Natural avalanches unlikely, human triggered possible.
Treeline
Natural avalanches unlikely, human triggered possible.
Below Treeline
Natural avalanches unlikely.
Alpine
Natural avalanches unlikely, human triggered possible.
Treeline
Natural avalanches unlikely, human triggered possible.
Below Treeline
Natural avalanches unlikely.

Regions

South Coast Inland, Birkenhead, Duffey, South Chilcotin, Stein, Taseko.

A hard crust on the snow surface will reduce the likelihood of triggering buried weak layers, but the consequences of an avalanche on these layers remain high.

Confidence

Moderate

Avalanche Summary

Last week, a flurry of very large, scary persistent slab avalanche activity was reported at alpine and treeline elevations. Naturals and remotely triggered slabs size 2 to 3 showed wide propagation, with crowns 50 to 100 cm deep.

Snowpack Summary

A widespread surface crust exists on most aspects and elevations. Dry snow may be found on north aspects above 2100 m.

Around 40 cm of settled snow sits over a weak layer of facets, surface hoar and sun crust buried in mid February. Numerous large natural and remote-triggered avalanches failed on this layer last week.

Another weak facet/crust/surface hoar layer, from late January, is buried 60 to 80 cm deep. This layer has been the culprit for many very large natural, remote and human-triggered avalanches near Whistler last week.

Weather Summary

Monday night

Cloudy. 10 to 20 km/h southwest ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -5°C. Freezing level valley bottom.

Tuesday

Mostly cloudy. 20 to 30 km/h southwest ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -2°C. Freezing level 1500 m.

Wednesday

1 to 5 cm of snow overnight then clearing to a mix of sun and cloud. 10 to 20 km/h southwest ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -2°C. Freezing level 1400 m.

Thursday

Sunny. 10 to 20 km/h northwest ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature 0°C. Freezing level 1700 m.

More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.

Terrain and Travel Advice

  • Be mindful that deep instabilities are still present and have produced recent large avalanches.
  • Avoid thin areas like rocky outcrops where you're most likely to trigger avalanches on deep weak layers.
  • Uncertainty is best managed through conservative terrain choices.

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.