Mountain Weather Forecast

A cold front and trailing upper trough will bring a significant change to the weather today in the form of convection. That's right, Spring has sprung and the precipitation pattern turns spottier. Alpine flurries will develop ahead of, along, and behind the cold front and deliver widely varying precipitation amounts, most noticeably for the Cariboos, North & South Columbias, and northern Purcells. Here, extra ingredients may lead to thundersnow and with it, small pockets of brief, moderate snowfall. As the cold front passes, freezing levels plummet. Moderate to strong southwesterly ridgetop winds shift to westerly as the cold front passes.

On the coast, onshore, unstable flow generates isolated to scattered flurries today. Again, expect widely varying precipitations amounts, but pockets of heavier snow due to thunderstorms is unlikely. With the coast already settled into the colder airmass, flurries will fall to mid elevations.

On Thursday, a temporary ridge of high pressure over Vancouver Island will try to stretch towards the BC-AB Elbow. Remnant moisture trapped under the ridge made lead to a few flakes over the southwestern ranges, while a trace to a few centimetres is still possible for the Cariboos, North & South Columbias, Purcells and Rockies.

With the weather stuck in a persistent pattern of new systems every 36-48 hours, the next system hits the northern BC coast late Thursday. The Northwest Ranges and central Coast Mountains take the brunt of the precipitation but light amounts will still spill into the interior from Pine Pass to Nakusp, and very light to light amounts for the southwestern ranges too. A more robust storm is looking to take aim at BC late Sunday through early next week.

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The 500 mb animation shows a robust upper trough (U-shaped black lines) crossing BC today. This feature will act as a trigger for convection and usher in a much cooler air mass and lower freezing levels.

Spotty precipitation (convection in westerly flow) along the Coast Mountains and interior ranges gradually fizzles out Thursday and Thursday night as an upper ridge slides over BC and stabilizes the atmosphere. The break in precipitation is short-lived however, as yet another weather system makes landfall late Thursday on the northern BC coast.

As the black geopotential height lines become more tightly packed over the Pacific this weekend, this indicates a strengthening westerly jet stream which will keep an active weather pattern going next week.