Alpine: Moderate through Friday
Treeline: Moderate through Friday
Below Treeline: Low through Friday
The avalanche danger will increase throughout the course of each day with exposure to sun and rising freezing levels.
Travel Advisory : Light amounts of loose snow are resting on a variable melt-freeze crust that formed with the combined effects of Sunday's mild temperatures, the solar affect and subsequent cooling. Steep shaded North aspects above 2,000 metres remained unaffected by the mild weather. You may find isolated pockets of soft slab around exposed terrain features on lee slopes.
Avalanche Activity: Expect surface instabilities to rapidly develop today on any slopes exposed to the sun, particularly in steep rocky terrain. Cornices have been fragile and reactive of late, and can be expected to remain so.
Snowpack: The 5 cm of snow that fell on Monday night is resting on a settling upper snowpack on North aspects that remains cold and winter like above 2,000 metres. On any solar aspects last week's storm snow layers became temperature affected resulting in the melt-freeze crust that lies under the surface layers of snow. This crust decreases in thickness and in strength as you approach high alpine elevations and will rapidly break down with the effects of the sun and with warming. Expect a typical spring melt-freeze cycle to become established today and persist at least through the weekend.
Weather: A series of very weak disturbances spinning off from an offshore low parked off the Washington coast will continue to affect our region periodically over the next several days. Freezing levels will rise to the mountaintops during the course of each day, falling to around 1,200 metres at night.
Conditions may vary and can change rapidly. Check for the most current conditions before heading out into the backcountry. Daily updates for the areas adjacent to Whistler/Blackcomb are available at 604-938-7676, or surf to www.whistler-blackcomb.com/weather where there is also a link to the CAA public avalanche bulletin, or call 1-800-667-1105.
- Whistler Mountain Snow Safety
