As of Wednesday, March 6
An icy blast of cold arctic air arrived overnight with temperatures plummeting to —23.0 ° C. in the alpine. Go figure. March rolls in bringing with it the coldest temperatures of the season to date! With the relative humidity hovering at around 85 per cent this morning, the rime that forms on your face makes you notice the cold temperatures a bit more.
We received 18cm. of new snow during the 24hr. period ending on Tuesday morning. Mountain top winds gusting to 100 km/h. from the West and Southwest were once again responsible for quite variable distribution of the new snow coverage. Wind-slabs of up to 30cm. in depth were observed to be reactive to ski testing yesterday in isolated areas only, most notably on Northerly aspects at around the treeline elevations where the underlying crust was much more firmly established than higher in the alpine. Coincidentally, this is where most of the new snow from higher elevations ended up getting transported by the wind.
The forecast is calling for the cold arctic air to linger until at least Friday, with periods of light snow flurries between now and Saturday. Some of the current runs of computer models are indicating that a strong Westerly flow will displace the arctic air by Sunday, bringing us warmer temperatures and heavy snowfall accumulations through Tuesday.
The backcountry avalanche danger in the areas adjacent to the Whistler/Blackcomb ski area boundaries is currently rated as MODERATE
.Daily updates for these areas are available at 604-938-7676, or at www.whistler-blackcomb.com/weather where there is also a link to the CAA public avalanche bulletin.
