Avalanches are most likely to fail on steep westerly through southerly wind-affected slopes near ridgetops.
Forecast easterly winds may build fresh wind slabs on leeward slopes on Sunday. Older wind slabs from last week could still be poorly bonded to an underlying crust.
On Thursday cracking and whumpfing, which are signs of instability, were noted in the Smithers area.
A few large (size 2) wind slab avalanches were reported last week. We suspect with recent and forecast wind, wind slabs may remain reactive to human triggering over the next few days.
Early season reports have been extremely limited. Please consider submitting your observations to the Mountain Information Network.
A 5 to 10 cm layer of new snow may cover older wind-affected surfaces. Strong easterly winds previously created slabs on many lee slopes. Sunday’s forecasted winds could form new, thin but reactive wind slabs on top of the old ones.A rain crust from early November is likely buried 30 to 50 cm deep and may be poorly bonded to overlying wind slabs.Most areas below treeline do not have enough snow to meet the threshold for avalanches.Alpine snow depths vary across the region, with about 100 cm west of Smithers, 50 cm to the east, and around 100 cm in the Ningunsaw area.
Saturday Night
Cloudy with 0 to 2 cm of snow. 10 to 20 km/h east wind. Treeline temperature -12 °C.
Sunday
Partly cloudy with 0 to 1 cm of snow. 25 to 35 km/h east wind. Treeline temperature -15 °C.
Monday
Mostly sunny. 10 to 15 km/h variable wind. Treeline temperature -13°C
Tuesday
Partly cloudy. 50 km/h west wind. Treeline temperature -9 °C.
More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.
