Northwest Coastal

Changing wind directions may develop new wind slabs in the alpine on Thursday.

High -

Tonight: Mostly clear with moderate northerly winds and alpine temperatures around -13. Thursday: Mix of sun and cloud with strong northerly outflow winds and alpine temperatures around -15. Friday: Clear with strong northeast outflow winds and alpine temperatures around -12. Saturday: Overcast with 3-5 cm of new snow and moderate to strong northwest winds.

No new avalanche activity reported. Some loose snow sluffing from steep terrain has been reported. Changing wind directions may develop new wind slabs in the alpine.

Overcast skies and a couple of cm of new snow has not changed the snowpack structure since the weekend. A new layer of surface hoar may have been buried early Monday morning. Clear cold weather and shifting winds have created a variety of surface conditions including isolated wind slabs, pockets of soft snow (15-25 cm deep), sun crusts, and surface hoar. A supportive rain crust exists below 1000 m. A layer of surface hoar that was buried on February 10th can be found buried 30-60 cm deep at treeline elevations and has been reactive in some recent snowpack tests. Below this layer, the snowpack is generally settled and strong. The exception is shallow snowpack areas around Bear Pass and Ningunsaw where basal facets remain an ongoing concern.