Northwest Coastal

Sunshine are warmth are the primary drivers of avalanche hazard. Avoid large sun drenched slopes if the snow is getting moist or wet.

Fair - Due to the number of field observations

Wednesday: Mainly sunny. The freezing level peaks near 1500 m. Ridge winds are light to moderate from the S-SW. Thursday: Increasing cloud with snow developing late. The freezing level is around 1300-1400 m. Winds increase to strong or extreme from the S-SW. Friday: Moderate snow. The freezing level is near 1000-1200 m and winds are strong from the south.

On Monday there was a report of a size 2 skier triggered slab and a size 1.5 remotely triggered slab in the northern part of region. These were both from alpine terrain and appeared to fail on a buried surface hoar layer. In the same part of the region a size 3.5 cornice triggered slab was reported from steep unskiable terrain. This likely released on a weakness near the base of the snowpack. Besides these two slabs, the only other reports are of small loose wet sluffs from steep sunny slopes.

Recent storm snow accumulations vary across the region, with the greatest amounts near the coast. The storm snow sits on a variety of old snow surfaces including a layer of surface hoar and facets buried on March 25th. This weakness, now down approximately 40 to 60cm has the potential for propagating over large areas. The problem seems more touchy in the northern part of the region, but has been reported throughout the northwest coastal area. The early March facet/crust persistent weakness is now down over a metre and produces hard, sudden planar results in snowpack tests.