Avalanche Forecast

Issued: Feb 10th, 2012 9:40AM

The alpine rating is moderate, the treeline rating is low, and the below treeline rating is low. Known problems include Cornices.

Avalanche Canada jlammers, Avalanche Canada

Summary

Confidence

Good - -1

Weather Forecast

A firmly embedded ridge of high pressure over Alberta seems to be causing systems to fizzle once they reach the Columbia Mountains. Although there may be sunny breaks on Saturday, conditions will be mostly cloudy for the forecast period with trace amounts of snowfall possible each day. Winds will be light and northwesterly with alpine temperatures trending from -7.0 on Saturday to -13.0 by Monday.

Avalanche Summary

No new avalanche activity to report.

Snowpack Summary

In general the snowpack is well settled and riders have gained confidence in steeper terrain. Very warm alpine temperatures from last weekend melted surface snow layers and a crust now exists to ridge top on solar aspects. Large weak cornices are plentiful and small wind slabs may exist in isolated terrain in the alpine. Below about 1500m, crust/facet layers buried in early January as well as widespread facets that were buried on January 20th are still on the radar of operators in the region. These layers represent a low probability/high consequence scenario. If you're traveling in the mountains now is a great time to take stock of current surface conditions (surface hoar, crusts, facets) that will become an issue once buried.

Problems

Cornices

An icon showing Cornices
Large cornices are looming over many slopes. They are weakest when it's warm and sunny. A falling chunk could trigger a large avalanche on the slope below.

Aspects: North, North East, East, South East.

Elevations: Alpine.

Likelihood

Possible

Expected Size

2 - 6

Valid until: Feb 11th, 2012 3:00AM