Warm weather leads to increased avalanche risk in parts of B.C.
People heading in the backcountry in B.C.'s Southern Interior are being asked to watch for increased avalanche risk after a few days of unseasonably warm weather.
Avalanche Canada has listed the avalanche risk as high in some mountain ranges in the Interior of the province, along with parts of the North Coast.
This increased risk adds uncertainty at a time when many people are still travelling in alpine terrain to ski or snowmobile.
Avalanche Canada says the current pattern is being driven by recent storm activity, followed by a period of high pressure that has brought warmer air and clear skies into the region.
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Zoe Ryan, an avalanche forecaster with Avalanche Canada said the sunny weather is not typical of this time of year.
“This unusual pattern is giving us a degree of uncertainty in how the snowpack will react to this change in the weather,” she said.
Ryan said mid-winter warming can weaken layers within the snowpack.
She adds that weather conditions can also influence how people behave in the mountains.
“So it’s almost more of a human desire that is going to be potentially creating a dangerous setup, because people are going to want to get out and enjoy the sunny weather,” Ryan said.
Impacts being felt
Those changing conditions are already affecting how people use and work in the mountains.
Don Webster is the program co-ordinator for the Adventure Tourism Business Operations Diploma at the College of the Rockies campus in Golden, B.C.
He said winter recreation and backcountry travel depend heavily on predictable snow conditions, something warming weather can quickly undermine.
Webster added that unstable snowpacks are affecting winter recreation and tourism.
“There’s a ton of implications for it,” Webster said.
Webster said when snowpack stability becomes harder to judge, it can affect decision-making for both guided operations and individual backcountry users.
He said he’s seen impacts on ski hill operations, backcountry skiers choosing not to go out and tourism trips being cancelled.
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Avalanche Canada says avalanche danger is starting to ease Wednesday in some areas as temperatures cool and a surface crust forms, but elevated risk remains across parts of the southern Interior, including the Kootenays and Purcell Mountains.
Ryan says weather forecasts become less reliable beyond a few days, making it difficult to predict how conditions will evolve over a longer period.
According to Ryan, while there are cooling conditions in the forecast, that doesn’t mean the risk will necessarily be reduced.
“We're expecting that with these prolonged warming temperatures that the snowpack will not have time to recover and will continue to produce natural and human-triggered avalanches.”
Ryan said it’s important for people to continue to check the daily avalanche predictions.
Thumbnail image credit to Gian Paolo Mendoza/CBC News.
This article, written by Amber Wang, was originally published for CBC News.