Purcells

A deeply buried weak layer remains a concern, especially on steep north facing slopes in the alpine. Remote triggering of this layer may still be possible.

Fair - Due to the number of field observations

The high pressure will continue to dominate for Wednesday and Thursday. On Wednesday, expect a mix of sun and cloud and treeline temperatures around -8C. Thursday will be mostly cloudy with light scattered flurries possible (0-2cm). Treeline temperatures should be around -6C. On Friday, the high pressure begins to break down as a weak system pushes into the interior from the coast. Precipitation amounts are forecast to be 2-4mm with treeline temperatures around -5C. Alpine winds are expected to remain light from the SW-W for the forecast period.

No new avalanches were reported by publish time on Tuesday. On Monday, explosive control produced a size 3 deep slab avalanche and a snowmobile triggered a size 1.5 wind slab. On Sunday, a report of a skier remotely triggering a size 2.5 avalanche from 5 meters away in the Dogtooth range alpine. This occurred at around 2300m in the alpine. Also reported was an explosive triggered size 2 persistent slab releasing around 60cm deep.

A surface crust exists up to around 2200 m. Above this elevation is dry storm snow which is settling out and faceting. A new layer of surface hoar is currently forming on the snow surface. In exposed alpine terrain, strong southerly winds last week may have resulted in variable distribution of the surface snow and the formation of wind slabs. The early November crust/facet layer is down around 1 m. Tests are suggesting that this layer is getting difficult to trigger but still has the potential to produce large avalanches. We received reports that this deep weak layer has resulted in remotely triggered avalanches over the weekend.