South Rockies

Fair - Timing, track, or intensity of incoming weather system is uncertain on Wednesday

Wednesday: Light snowfall intensifying overnight (up to 10cm) / Moderate to strong westerly winds / Freezing level at 1300mThursday: Continued flurries / Moderate westerly winds / Freezing level at surfaceFriday: A mix of sun and cloud / Light northwest winds / Freezing level at surface

In recent days avalanche observations have been very limited. There was, however, a recent report of a size 1.5 human triggered slab avalanche in the Harvey Pass area. See our Incident Report Database for more details.I expect more storm/wind slab activity in response to weather forecast for Wednesday evening.

Up to 55cm of recent storm snow has been redistributed by strong winds into deeper deposits in lee terrain. Recent snowpack tests suggest there are still likely weaknesses near the base of the storm snow. The recent accumulations overlie hard rain crusts which exist on all aspects below 2000m and on solar aspects in the alpine. North of Sparwood and in the Crow's Nest Pass area the buried crust seems more specific to previously sun-exposed slopes. Below about 1700m rain has saturated the snowpack, and surfaces may now exist as a hard refrozen crust where temperatures have dipped below freezing.The deep facet/crust persistent weakness buried at the beginning of February, now down up to 150cm, is still producing sudden results in snowpack tests. I would be very leery of any slopes that have not already avalanched as any activity at this interface would be large and destructive. Likely triggers include a large cornice fall, a large input in a thin snowpack area or solar warming.Cornices have also become large and unstable.