Avalanche Forecast

Issued: Feb 18th, 2015 7:05AM

The alpine rating is considerable, the treeline rating is moderate, and the below treeline rating is low. Known problems include Wind Slabs and Deep Persistent Slabs.

matt.mueller, Alberta Parks

Kananaskis.

A bit of snow is on the way for later in the week. It will be a welcome addition when it arrives!

Summary

Confidence

Good

Weather Forecast

We have seen a wide spread between overnight lows and daytime highs. We can expect this to continue for the next few days. Tomorrow's alpine high will be -5. The winds will make it feel a bit chillier though. Ridge winds will be 30km/hr and gust to 55km/hr. There will be some flurries giving trace amounts. Freezing level is forecasted to be 1600m.

Avalanche Summary

No new avalanches

Snowpack Summary

No significant change in the last day. The overnight lows have been quite cold. Burstall Pass parking hit -19.7 as the low last night. This has tightened the snowpack considerably at all elevations. The surface crust is thick below treeline, solar aspects. In places today it was 10cm thick and supportive enough to walk on! There was little evidence of wind transport at treeline elevations today. Alpine windslabs are focused on the Eastern (lee) aspects for the most part. Valley bottom depths are about 90cm's and treeline averages 154 cm's.

Problems

Wind Slabs

As the natural cycle becomes more distant, it is getting easier to relax and forget about this slab problem. Be sure to keep it in mind as the terrain becomes more windloaded and unpredictable in terms of snow coverage.

Choose well supported terrain without convexities.>Carefully evaluate and use caution around thin snowpack areas.>

Aspects: North, North East, East, South East, South.

Elevations: Alpine, Treeline.

Likelihood

Possible - Likely

Expected Size

2 - 4

Deep Persistent Slabs

Thin areas, and paths that have not avalanched during the cycle are more likely to have this problem.

Be aware of thin areas that may propogate to deeper instabilites.>Be aware of the potential for large, deep avalanches.>

Aspects: All aspects.

Elevations: Alpine, Treeline.

Likelihood

Possible

Expected Size

2 - 5

Valid until: Feb 19th, 2015 2:00PM