Northwest Coastal

Avoid steep, rocky, and wind-affected areas where triggering slabs is more likely.

Conditions Update Here

Low

• We are uncertain about alpine conditions due to limited field observations.
• We are confident that there are persistent slabs in the snowpack, but uncertain about how likely they are to trigger.

Over this week, a few natural, cornice-triggered, and skier-triggered wind slabs up to size 2 were reported. A few natural cornice failures occurred, but did not pull slabs on the slopes below.

In the neighbouring region, a fatal avalanche accident occurred north of Terrace on March 22. Available details can be found here.

Observations in this region are limited, and there's uncertainty about buried weak layers in the mid snowpack. Choose conservative terrain.

Strong winds have left slabs and pressed surfaces in open and exposed terrain. 10 to 30 cm of facetted and settling snow is found in sheltered areas, and this covers a variety of old surfaces, including surface hoar, facets, crusts, and/or wind-scoured snow.

There are multiple persistent weak layers consisting of crust/facets or surface hoar in the top 200 cm of the snowpack. We have limited information on the distribution and reactivity of these layers.

Cornices are large; give them space.

Friday Night

Mostly cloudy. 1 to 2 cm of snow. 20 km/h south ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -10 °C.

Saturday

Mix of sun and clouds. 1 to 2 cm of snow. 10 km/h southwest ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -9 °C.

Sunday

Mix of sun and clouds. 1 cm of snow. 10 km/h southwest ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -10 °C.

Monday

Mostly cloudy. 2 to 4 cm of snow. 30 km/h southwest ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -10 °C.

More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.

• Stay off recently wind loaded slopes until they have had a chance to stabilize.
• Cornice failures could trigger large and destructive avalanches.
• Be aware of the potential for large avalanches due to buried weak layers.