Avalanche forecast

Kananaskis

Nov 14 – 15, 2015Alberta Parks
View on map
Archived · expired 11 years ago

Avalanche danger

Mon
Tue
Alpine
4 · High
Treeline
3 · Considerable
Below
1 · Low
Open full map

Highlights

Warm temperatures with winds from the southwest are forecast for Sunday.  There is a significant amount of new storm snow available for redistribution.  An early season snowpack has unpredictable characteristics, keep your terrain choices simple.

Avalanche problems

  • Wind Slabs

    • Alpine
    • Treeline
    • Below treeline
    Likelihood
    Possible - Likely
    Size
    1–2
    Wind slabs are buried and will require some curiosity as to where they exist in the terrain features.  Be suspicious of ridgetop features and on lee aspects.

  • Storm Slabs

    • Alpine
    • Treeline
    • Below treeline
    Likelihood
    Likely
    Size
    1–3
    The new storm snow is loaded over a very unconsolidated base of soft snow.  In other words, give the new storm snow some time to settle and strengthen before committing to aggressive terrain features.

Confidence

Fair - Due to the number and quality of field observations on Sunday

Weather Forecast

Light flurries will taper off and high freezing levels of approximately 1900 meters will persist through Sunday.  Winds will be moderate to strong out of the SW at treeline and above.  Freezing levels will return to the valley bottoms on Monday.

Avalanche Summary

Minimal observations due to poor visibility.

Snowpack Summary

The snowpack consists of 45-50 cm of storm snow that overlies a largely unconsolidated base layer. Some preliminary snowpack observations are indicating a melt freeze crust that exists approximately 10 cm off of the ground but we will continue to investigate other elevations and aspects to determine the prevalence of the layer.

Regions covered