Wind and light snowfall through the day Friday will continue to build thin wind slabs at upper elevations.
While most open areas are heavily wind affected, the most likely places to trigger a slab are steep, north-facing alpine features.
The AvCan field team observed small natural wind slab avalanches on Mount Arrowsmith during the peak of Tuesday’s storm. Observations from the Prince of Wales Range on Wednesday suggest these slabs were becoming better bonded.
Looking ahead, wind slabs should continue to stabilize but may still be possible to trigger on some steep alpine features.
There is likely a few centimetres of new snow sitting over wind-affected snow in exposed areas treeline and above. In sheltered areas, 30 to 40 cm of recent snow sits on a thick rain crust that formed over the weekend. The mid and lower snowpack are well settled and dense, with treeline depths averaging 100 to 150 cm.
Cloudy. 2 to 5 cm of snow. 40 km/h southwest ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -2 °C. Freezing level 900 m.
Cloudy. 2 to 4 mm of precipitation as snow or rain at treeline. 50 km/h southwest ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature 0 °C. Freezing level 1300 m.
Mostly cloudy. 20 to 40 mm of precipitation as snow or rain at treeline. 60 km/h south ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature 1 °C. Freezing level 1500 m.
Mostly cloudy. 10 to 30 mm of rain at treeline. 50 km/h south ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature 2 °C. Freezing level 1900 m.
More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.
