Avalanche Forecast

Issued: Jan 24th, 2019 3:00PM

The alpine rating is moderate, the treeline rating is moderate, and the below treeline rating is low. Known problems include Deep Persistent Slabs and Wind Slabs.

matt.mueller, Alberta Parks

Kananaskis.

Avoiding weak spots in the snowpack is critical now. Avoid shallow areas, thinly buried boulders & even thin trees are all features that could cause the deep layers to fail.

Summary

Confidence

High -

Weather Forecast

Nothing new for snow in the next few days. The morning will be -13 to start, but eventually warm up to -8. Similar to today, the cloud cover will light with some blue skies. Winds will also be light from the SW.

Avalanche Summary

No new avalanches were observed today.

Snowpack Summary

No new snow and isolated wind has kept the snowpack basically unchanged from the past few days. We're seeing a light surface dusting in many areas with older windslabs underneath. The windslab's bond to the underlying layers is improving with time and moderate temperatures. Of growing concern is the Jan 17 surface hoar layer, now down 15-20cm at treeline. As the load/burial depth increases this layer will become more of a worry. If you've been reading the bulletins lately, you can probably guess the next line. That's right, the deeper facets and depth hoar layers are still there! In some areas this is presenting as 2 distinct layers and in others its just one thick layer of junk. Thin areas, or areas with a hard surface wind slab are especially concerning.

Problems

Deep Persistent Slabs

Two different layers are included in this problem. To make it even trickier, in some places they'll react as one, and in others they will fail separately, but quickly step down. In either case, triggering it will produce a large avalanche.

Be aware of the potential for full depth avalanches due to weak layers at the base of the snowpack.Carefully evaluate and use caution around thin snowpack areas.

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

Elevations: All elevations.

Likelihood

Possible

Expected Size

1.5 - 3

Wind Slabs

An improving bond is helping to ease the concern with this layer, but still watch for it in immediate lee areas.

Be aware of thin areas that may propogate to deeper instabilites.Caution in lee and cross-loaded terrain near ridge crests.

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

Elevations: Alpine, Treeline.

Likelihood

Unlikely - Possible

Expected Size

1 - 2.5

Valid until: Jan 25th, 2019 2:00PM