Avalanche Forecast
Northwest Coastal
Caution if the sun comes out - avoid steep sunny slopes where the snow will lose cohesion.
Avalanche Problem 1: Wind Slabs
What Elevation?
Which Slopes?
Chances of Avalanches?
Expected Size?
Travel and Terrain Advice
- Be cautious as you transition into wind affected terrain.
- Give cornices a wide berth when travelling on or below ridges.
- Travel on ridgetops to avoid wind slabs on slopes below.
Avalanche Summary
A widespread wind slab cycle was reported last weekend, with a few naturally and human-triggered size 1-2 avalanches continuing over the last few days. Most of these have been confined to recently built wind slabs, however a couple failed on deeper weak layers in the snowpack, especially when triggered from thin spots on a slope.
It will still be possible to trigger a wind slab with the weight of a person in specific terrain. Persistent slabs could still be triggered from thin-to-thick snowpack areas, or with a heavy load. Be mindful of any steep slopes getting cooked by the sun and give these a healthy berth.
Snowpack Summary
You're likely to encounter highly variable snow surfaces after recent strong arctic outflow winds took out their fury on the upper snowpack. Fragile cornices and hard and soft wind slabs can be found on many alpine and treeline slopes. Ongoing cold temperatures are helping to break down and soften these. Windward slopes (roughly north to east facing) have been scoured back to an old crust.
The wind slabs sit on various old surfaces including sun crusts, facets and spotty surface hoar (which is most prevalent in sheltered treed locations). Around 50-150 cm down, you'll find a crust/surface hoar layer, which still has the chance to surprise you and could be triggered from a thin snowpack spot, or with a large trigger like cornice fall.
Weather Forecast
THURSDAY: Mix of sun and cloud. Freezing level at valley floor. Light winds.
FRIDAY: Light snow (5-10 cm). Freezing level near 600 m. Moderate west to south-westerly winds.
SATURDAY: 5 cm snow. Freezing level near 400 m. Light winds.
Avalanche Forecasts in your Inbox
Avalanche Canada has switched to an RSS feed for its daily forecasts. This is a much more flexible method that allows automatic delivery to your email inbox, or to an RSS reader of your choice.
What are RSS feeds?
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a popular standardized file format allowing up-to-date delivery of web-based content. RSS feeds enable you to receive content updates from websites, delivered to your email through an RSS aggregator (such as blogtrottr.com) or viewed through applications called RSS readers (such as feedly.com).
Set up an RSS feed for your email:
Select a RSS aggregator
- Northwest Coastal URL:
http://www.avalanche.ca/api/forecasts/northwest-coastal.rss - Copy the url and paste it into the appropriate field of your RSS aggregator.
- Fill in your email address.
- Voila! Watch the Avalanche Canada forecast roll into your inbox.
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Wind slabs may be lurking in the lee of ridges and ribs.