Northwest Coastal

Normal cautions should help you to avoid the most recently formed small wind slabs.

High -

Monday night: Clear. Strong northeast winds.Tuesday: Sunny. Strong to extreme northeast winds easing to light by evening. Alpine high temperatures around -14.Wednesday: Mainly cloudy with isolated flurries bringing a trace of new snow, continuing overnight. Light to moderate northwest winds switching to northeast. Alpine high temperatures around -10.Thursday: Mainly cloudy with continuing isolated flurries and a trace of new snow, with new snow totals of 5-10 cm. Light to moderate east winds. Alpine high temperatures around -13.

Reports from Sunday again showed small (size 1), thin wind slabs releasing with ski cutting on northwest to west aspects. In the north of the region near Ningunsaw, an older, large (size 3) natural deep persistent slab was observed on a steeper, crossloaded feature at 1700 metres. The slab depth ranged from 50 cm to 2 metres as a shallower wind slab release stepped down to the weak basal snowpack.On Friday, a skier triggered a small (size 1) soft wind slab avalanche on a north aspect at 1550 m near Mt Hadden.

In most areas, the upper snowpack is composed of successive layers of aging, wind affected storm snow layers. The top layer of this snow has been faceting (becoming sugary) under the influence of recent cold temperatures at all elevations. Limited sheltered areas at lower elevations may still hold pockets of around 40 cm of low density snow which will overlie a thick melt-freeze crust at and below treeline.In the south of the region, the remainder of the snowpack is well-settled.Around Bear Pass and in the north of the region, there is a weak layer of feathery surface hoar crystals about 50 cm deep. This layer is likely most prominent in sheltered and shaded areas. Also in the north, a few weak layers may still exist within the middle and lower half of the snowpack. These include another layer of surface hoar around 70 to 100 cm deep and a layer of sugary faceted snow around 200 cm deep. These layers are a concern in thinner snowpack areas at higher elevations, where thicker, bridging layers of old storm snow and crust may be absent.