Avalanche Forecast
Northwest Inland
Widespread windslabs continue to form at treeline and alpine elevations.
Avalanche Problem 1: Wind Slabs
What Elevation?
Which Slopes?
Chances of Avalanches?
Expected Size?
Travel and Terrain Advice
- Travel on ridgetops to avoid wind slabs on slopes below.
- Give cornices a wide berth when travelling on or below ridges.
- Be cautious as you transition into wind affected terrain.
Avalanche Problem 2: Persistent Slabs
What Elevation?
Which Slopes?
Chances of Avalanches?
Expected Size?
Buried weak layers are most likely to be triggered from thin or variable depth snowpack areas; or with a large load like a cornice fall.
Travel and Terrain Advice
- Avoid thin, rocky or sparsely-treed slopes.
- If triggered the storm/wind slabs may step down to deeper layers resulting in large avalanches.
Avalanche Summary
Poor weather has limited the opportunity for avalanche observations. It's likely that continued snow and wind loading at treeline and alpine elevations has primed conditions for human-triggering or natural avalanches.
Snowpack Summary
Light snow and strong winds continue to create wind slabs in open terrain at alpine and treeline elevations. These cover old hard wind slabs and scoured surfaces in many exposed areas. In wind-sheltered terrain, sun crusts or dry facets sit below the recent storm snow.
Around 50-150 cm down, you will find a crust/surface hoar layer from mid-January, 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.
Facets at the base of the snowpack could possibly be triggered from shallow snowpack areas.
Weather Forecast
Another storm is arriving in the region mid-day Monday and should be winding down Tuesday morning. It should deliver up to another 10cm of snow to most parts of the region; however, favoured areas in the north and west could see closer to 30 cm! The bad news is all that snow will have come with strong SW winds
TUESDAY: Continued moderate to strong westerly winds. Snow tapering off to flurries or even a mix of sun and cloud (aka dry).
WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY: Lots of uncertainty in the forecast. There will be a Low somewhere around Haida Gwaii, and it's likely that'll spin the wind around to the southeast and eventually the east. It's pretty likely the weather will dry out with little precipitation outside of localized convective showers. Check back for updates and ...
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Wind slabs are widespread and could be triggered by the weight of a person.