Avalanche forecast

Waterton Lakes

Dec 22 – 25, 2019Parks Canada
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Archived · expired 7 years ago

Avalanche danger

Mon
Tue
Alpine
4 · High
Treeline
4 · High
Below
3 · Considerable

Highlights

Sunday afternoon will bring an end to the storm, but continued overnight wind and snowfall will keep the hazard elevated until freezing levels descend and the snowpack has had time to adjust to the load.

Avalanche problems

  • Persistent Slabs

    • Alpine
    • Treeline
    • Below treeline
    Likelihood
    Possible - Likely
    Size
    2–3

    Recent Rain, snow and warm temperatures has begun to overload melt freeze crusts and facets from early season snowfalls causing large avalanches.

  • Storm Slabs

    • Alpine
    • Treeline
    • Below treeline
    Likelihood
    Likely - Very Likely
    Size
    1–2

    Continued snowfall accompanied by 120km/h southwest winds has formed touchy slabs

Weather Forecast

Weather models are conflicted on snowfall amounts for Saturday night with amounts between 8 to 20cm expected. Strong winds will continue overnight with a lull on Sunday where we may even see some sun. Freezing level is expected to remain around 1700m descending to valley bottom by Monday night.

Snowpack Summary

60cm+ of wet snow and rain in the Cameron Lake area has arrived with extreme northwest winds and a freezing level around 1900m, continuing to load the snowpack. A weak crust facet combo formed in November is down 60cm, and additional crust/facet layers formed in October form the bottom of the snowpack.

Avalanche Summary

A widespread natural cycle was observed on Saturday along the Red Rock and Akamina parkways, with avalanches to size 2 in the storm snow and some larger ones failing on deep persistent weak layers

Confidence

Forecast snowfall amounts are uncertain

Regions covered