Avalanche hazard is improving, but triggering avalanches in specific or isolated terrain remains possible. Be wary of residual reactivity in wind slabs that may be sitting over a weak layer.
Wind slabs trend less reactive as they facet and lose cohesion in the cold temperatures. Isolated pockets may remain triggerable where they sit over a rain crust or large surface hoar crystals.
Saturday night: Partly cloudy, northwest wind 20-30 km/h, treeline temperatures around -18.
Sunday: Increasing cloud, flurries starting in the afternoon, light westerly wind, treeline temperatures around -12.
Monday: Mostly cloudy with isolated flurries, trace, light southerly wind, treeline temperatures around -12.
Tuesday: Mostly cloudy with isolated flurries, trace, light southerly wind, treeline temperatures around -12.
No new reports in the last couple of days. Earlier in the week, a few small skier controlled wind slabs at wind loaded ridgecrests likely failed on shallow surface hoar and ran on a near surface crust.
One or more crusts may exist in the upper snowpack depending on elevation and area within the region. The uppermost crust extends up to around 2000 m, ie. ridgetop in areas such as Rossland. In higher terrain, 10-15 cm of wind affected snow may sit over crust and/or large surface hoar crystals.
A layer of surface hoar found 20-50 cm below the surface in isolated areas in the north and east of the region appears to be healing. It may still produce moderate to hard planar snowpack test results on rounding crystals, but has not had any associated avalanche activity in over a week.
A couple of crusts surrounded by weak faceted grains are buried deep within the snowpack. The upper layer is 80 to 130 cm deep and the lower is near the ground. These do not present a problem under the current conditions.
