South Rockies

Fair - Timing or intensity of solar radiation is uncertain on Saturday

A ridge of high pressure is expected to slowly move into the interior ranges on Saturday. Unsettled conditions with showers in the valleys and flurries above 1700 metres should continue during the day. Clearing skies are forecast by Saturday evening, which should bring the freezing level down to about 1200 metres overnight. Sunday should be mostly sunny with light variable winds and a chance of afternoon cloud building as the freezing level rises to about 1800 metres. The wind is expected to start to build out of the southwest on Monday as a low pressure system moves onto the south coast. It is a little too early to forecast when this system will push into the eastern ranges of the interior mountains.

No new avalanche observation reported.

On Thursday, up to 10 cm of new snow fell at upper elevations. This recent spring- like warm weather has promoted settlement within the snowpack. Melt-freeze conditions exist, and snow is moist below 1700 m on all aspects. On solar aspects the snow has become moist to ridgetop and new snow may have a poor bond to the crust. Below the surface, down 60-100 cm sits on the March 27th interface which seems to be more predominant on southerly aspects. The bond on this interface seems to be improving, as field tests have shown no significant results. On Tuesday our field team went back to the Flathead to gather some observations. They found the mid Feb surface hoar layer down 280 cm, test results showed a Deep Tap Test of 21 with a sudden collapse characteristic. This layer currently sits dormant, but may wake up later this spring under a prolonged heat up.