Continued snow and wind have made wind slabs in the alpine and treeline.
Be cautious in areas that look wind loaded, pillowed, or extra thick.
Continued snowfall late last week and over the weekend, in combination with winds from both east and west, have made wind slabs on many aspects.
There was a report of small (size 1) reactive storm slab avalanches around Wells on Saturday.
A few small (size 1 to 1.5), isolated wind slab avalanches were observed in alpine terrain across the region on Wednesday and Thursday.
10 cm of new snow is now resting on a previous 20 cm that was redistributed by strong northeast wind. This upper 30 cm of recent snow may bond poorly to underlying layers of surface hoar, faceted snow, and wind-pressed snow.
A prominent crust is found 30 to 50 cm deep. It extends up to 1900 m in the Cariboos and up to 1400 m around Pine Pass. At this point, the only potential concern with this layer is for areas east of Quesnel and Williams Lake, where a layer of small surface hoar has been observed near the crust.
The midpack is reportedly strong and bonded.
Sunday Night
Cloudy with up to 3 cm snow, southwest alpine wind 20-40 km/h, treeline temperature -5 °C.
Monday
Mostly cloudy with up to 3 cm of snow, southwest alpine wind 10-30 km/h, treeline temperature -5 °C, except 0 °C around Wells/ Barkerville with an above freezing layer between 1300-1500 m.
Tuesday
Cloudy with up to 5 cm of snow, west alpine wind 20-40 km/h, treeline temperature -2 °C, except around Wells/ Barkerville with an above freezing layer between 900-1500 m.
Wednesday
Cloudy with flurries, southwest alpine wind 30-50 km/h, treeline temperature -1 °C, except around Wells/ Barkerville with freezing levels rising to 1400 m.
More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.
