Regions
Banff Yoho Kootenay.
Spring like conditions exist. Pay attention to how warm it is getting and how strong the overnight recovery is. Valley bottoms may become isothermal. Start and end your tours early.
Weather Forecast
Wednesday will be mainly cloudy with some isolated flurries at upper elevations. Freezing levels will rise to 2100 m. Continued warm temperatures with little precipitation through the end of the week.
Snowpack Summary
Generally well settled mid pack with with weaker facets and depth hoar in basal pack. Moist snow on solar aspects below 2000 m. Very isolated wind slabs may be found near ridge tops in the alpine.
Avalanche Summary
One skier triggered wind slab (size 1.5) on a south slope at 3000 m reported from the Wapta on Tuesday. Several loose wet avalanches up to Class 1.5 on solar aspects.
Confidence
Freezing levels are uncertain
Problems
Loose Wet
Loose Wet avalanches are the release of wet unconsolidated snow or slush. These avalanches typically occur within layers of wet snow near the surface of the snowpack, but they may quickly gouge into lower snowpack layers. Like Loose Dry Avalanches, they start at a point and entrain snow as they move downhill, forming a fan-shaped avalanche. Other names for loose-wet avalanches include point-release avalanches or sluffs. Loose Wet avalanches can trigger slab avalanches that break into deeper snow layers.
Deep Persistent Slabs
Deep Persistent Slab avalanches are the release of a thick cohesive layer of hard snow (a slab), when the bond breaks between the slab and an underlying persistent weak layer deep in the snowpack. The most common persistent weak layers involved in deep, persistent slabs are depth hoar or facets surrounding a deeply buried crust. Deep Persistent Slabs are typically hard to trigger, are very destructive and dangerous due to the large mass of snow involved, and can persist for months once developed. They are often triggered from areas where the snow is shallow and weak, and are particularly difficult to forecast for and manage.