Avalanche Forecast
Northwest Coastal
Weather forecast models disagree about snow amounts. If it is snowing heavily and/or blowing in your area, expect high avalanche danger.
Avalanche Problem 1: Storm Slabs
What Elevation?
Which Slopes?
Chances of Avalanches?
Expected Size?
Travel and Terrain Advice
- Use conservative route selection. Choose moderate angled and supported terrain with low consequence.
- Give cornices a wide berth when travelling on or below ridges.
- Minimize overhead exposure during periods of heavy loading from new snow or wind.
Avalanche Problem 2: Loose Dry
What Elevation?
Which Slopes?
Chances of Avalanches?
Expected Size?
Dry new snow is likely to sluff easily in steep terrain, especially where it overlies a hard crust.
Travel and Terrain Advice
- Be cautious of sluffing in steep terrain, particularly where the debris flows into terrain traps.
- If triggered, loose dry avalanches may step down to deeper layers resulting in large avalanches.
Avalanche Summary
Rapid wind loading caused a natural avalanche cycle on Wednesday. On steep solar aspects, size 1-2 loose wet avalanches were also observed.
New snow and wind are expected to cause a rise in avalanche activity on Friday and the weekend.
Snowpack Summary
Incoming snow is expected to be light and dry, but will come with moderate to strong south-westerly winds. Loose snow sluffing and fresh wind slabs are likely problems on Friday. New snow will overlie old soft and hard wind slabs.
In the upper pack is an interface of sun crusts, facets and spotty surface hoar (which is most prevalent in sheltered treed locations). Deeper in the snowpack, 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
THUSRDAY NIGHT/ FRIDAY: 20-40 cm light dry snow. Freezing level near 600 m. Moderate south-westerly winds. Weather models suggest heaviest snow in the Terrace area, with less as you travel east and north.
SATURDAY: 5-10 cm snow. Freezing level near 400 m. Moderate south-westerly winds.
SUNDAY: 10-20 cm snow. Freezing level near 400 m. Light to moderate south-westerly 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?
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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.
Forecast Disclaimer
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New snow and wind are building fresh slabs, which may fail naturally or with the weight of a person. A storm slab could step down to a deeper weak layer, creating a surprisingly large avalanche.