South Columbia

Look out, there's good snow about. Don't switch off your brain: assess the snowpack before committing to a line.

High - The weather pattern is stable

We have entered a cool, dry spell. Expect light northerly winds, sun and slightly milder temperatures in the alpine; and cloud and cold temperatures in the valleys.For more details check out https://avalanche.ca/weather.

Several small loose dry and very soft slab avalanches have been reported over the last couple of days. A touch of sun and warming may spark some loose natural avalanches or create slab properties in the recent storm snow.

30-50 cm recent dry snow overlies a generally strong snowpack. Some operators report surface hoar buried down about 10-15 cm. You may encounter wind slabs which are sensitive to the weight of a person near ridge tops. Recent storm snow may sluff in steep terrain, especially with a touch of sun. One operator near Kamloops is reporting a hard slab sitting on a layer of surface hoar buried down 30-50 cm. This appears to be an outlier, but I would take extra time to investigate the snowpack if you are in the far west of the region. The lower snowpack is reportedly well settled. The early December weak layer (about 80-150 cm down) is spotty in distribution, but where it does exist, still gives hard, sudden results, meaning it is unlikely to be triggered, but could produce a very large avalanche.