Avalanche Forecast

Moderate - Uncertainty is due to how the snowpack will react to the forecast weather.

Sunday night: Clearing skies, flurries tapering. Moderate southwest winds. Alpine temperatures around -11 C, freezing levels valley bottom.

Monday: Mix of sun and cloud with isolated flurries. Light southwest winds. Alpine temperatures around -8 C, freezing levels valley bottom.

Tuesday: Mix of sun and cloud with flurries bringing 10-20 cm of snow. Light southwest winds. Alpine temperatures around -1 C, freezing levels valley bottom.

Wednesday: Mix of sun and cloud with flurries bringing 5-10 cm of snow with light rain below 1500 m. Moderate southwest winds. Alpine temperatures around -3 C, freezing levels rising to 1700 m in the south of the region.

Reports of thick crowns from windslab avalanches at low elevations have been rolling in over the weekend. On Saturday we received a report of a remotely triggered windslab that slid on a crust in an open area below treeline. 

The chance of full depth avalanches has diminished since the very large deep persistent slab avalanche cycle around Christmas, but neighboring Kananaskis Country is still occasionally observing the odd large persistent slab avalanche, as recently as Friday. Conditions which may cause these deep layers to wake up and become active include: unusually high accumulations of new snow or wind-blown snow; rapid and prolonged warming; or from human-triggering in a thin, rocky start zone.

Recent snow and strong winds have formed windslab in open areas at all elevations. A reasonably consolidated upper snowpack overlies a weak base. The bottom 30-50 cm of the snowpack consists of weak facets and crusts. Although these layers have been unreactive in recent snowpack tests and have not produced avalanche activity recently, there is the potential for them to wake up with large loads or significant warming.

• Keep your guard up at lower elevations. Wind slab formation has been extensive.
• Be careful with wind loaded pockets, especially near ridge crests and roll-overs.
• If triggered, wind slabs avalanches may step down to deeper layers resulting in larger avalanches.