Avalanche Forecast
Regions: Bow Valley, Highwood Pass, Kananaskis, North 40, Spray - KLakes.
Freezing levels keep slowly creeping upwards. A increase in avalanche activity is expected. Keep an eye out for decreasing stability in the surface snow, such as snow balling and pinwheeling.
Confidence
Moderate
Avalanche Summary
Nothing new has been reported or observed.
Snowpack Summary
The surface snow in the valley bottoms are starting to become moist during the warmth of the day. The top 30cm of the snowpack is either made up of settled snow or wind slabs and is overlying 5-15cm of facets. These wind slabs were found at treeline and above and produced some cracking when travelling uphill. The January 8th facet/crust surface hoar layer is down about 25-30cm and is getting better as the warmth sinks in.
Weather Summary
Sunday will continue with the warm temperatures, Freezing levels will continue to slowly rise to 2100m Ridge winds 55km/h out of the West. Cloudy skies. Freezing rain is talked about on some models.
More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.
Terrain and Travel Advice
- Back off if you encounter whumpfing, hollow sounds, or shooting cracks.
- Be carefull around freshly wind loaded features.
- In areas where deep persistent slabs may exist, avoid shallow or variable depth snowpacks and unsupported terrain features.
Avalanche Problems
Persistent Slabs
Hard and soft slabs have developed from the warm tempratures, wind and small snow fall amounts. These sit atop of cold snap facet interface. Sun crusts are also found on steep solar aspects around treeline
Aspects: All aspects.
Elevations: Alpine, Treeline.
Likelihood: Possible - Likely
Expected Size: 1 - 2
Deep Persistent Slabs
This layer is getting getting buried deeper and deeper over time. The weight and amount of new snow is slowly increasing, which will increase the size of any potential avalanches.
Aspects: North, North East, East, South East, South.
Elevations: Alpine.
Likelihood: Possible
Expected Size: 1.5 - 3