South Rockies

While wind sheltered features should offer great riding, be very cautious if you poke out into wind exposed terrain. Fresh sensitive wind slabs are expected to continue to form as winds pick up over the next few days.

Moderate - Wind speed and direction is uncertain on Wednesday

Light snowfall, cool temperatures and moderate westerly winds are expected for the first half of the workweek. There is potential for a significant warm up on Thursday. Stay tuned for details.MONDAY: Broken cloud cover, freezing level at valley bottom, light to moderate southwest wind, isolated snow flurries, 1 to 5 cm possible. TUESDAY: Broken cloud cover, freezing level at valley bottom, light to moderate west wind, 2 to 10 cm of snow possible.WEDNESDAY: Scattered cloud cover, freezing level at valley bottom, strong to extreme west/northwest wind, isolated snow flurries, 1 to 5 cm possible.Visit avalanche.ca/weather for a more detailed mountain weather forecast.

On Saturday, two small size 1 wind slabs were triggered by skiers. Some loose dry avalanches to size 1.5 were observed on Friday in the Elk Valley North, near Crown Mountain. The deep persistent slab problem is a low probability/high consequence scenario that warrants extra caution around large open slopes, especially in shallow snowpack areas. There was a report on Tuesday of a size 3.5 avalanche at Mt Hosmer in the Lizard/Flathead region that released on or stepped down to the deep weak layer near the ground. On Wednesday we had a report from the Lizard range of another size 3.0 deep persistent avalanche on a northeast aspect in the alpine. Avalanche activity on Wednesday near Elkford was limited to loose snow up to size 1.5.

On Saturday night the region picked up 2 to 20 cm, with the Castle area being the clear winner. This storm snow rests upon last weeks ageing storm slab. The mid-pack in this region is well settled, but the bottom third of the snowpack is composed of weak facets. Recent snow profile tests have produced failures with moderate input that released suddenly down 75 cm on the facetted crystals. In the Crowsnest North late last week up to 35 cm of recent storm snow lies above various old surfaces. Near Elkford up to 20 cm of old storm snow sits above a melt/freeze crust. Approximately 100-120 cm of settled snow sits above the weak layer of sugary facets that developed during the cold spell in December. Snow profile tests indicate hard shears in this location where the facets are sitting on a hard wind crust.