Avalanche Forecast

Issued: Mar 21st, 2021 4:00PM

The alpine rating is low, the treeline rating is low, and the below treeline rating is low.

Avalanche Canada cgarritty, Avalanche Canada

Email

Get out there and explore the region! Alpine hazards are quite manageable with normal cautions right now. Visibility should improve a bit on Tuesday.

Summary

Confidence

High -

Weather Forecast

Sunday: Cloudy with continuing scattered flurries with less than 5 cm of new snow. Moderate to strong southwest winds.

Monday: Cloudy with continuing isolated flurries and a trace of new snow, increasing a bit overnight. Light southwest winds. Alpine high temperatures around -5.

Tuesday: A mix of sun and cloud. Light southwest winds increasing over the day and becoming strong in the alpine overnight. Alpine high temperatures around -4.

Wednesday: Cloudy with light flurries and less than 5 cm of new snow. Moderate to strong southwest winds becoming light over the day. Alpine high temperatures around -4.

Avalanche Summary

No new avalanches have been reported in the region over the past few days. 

Looking forward, light forecast snow amounts are not expected to be sufficient to form a new wind slab problem beyond isolated small slabs in leeward terrain features.

Snowpack Summary

Light new snow amounts have been accumulating over wind affected surfaces in the alpine and refrozen crust lower down after light rain recently wet the snow surface below about 1700 metres. Continuing light flurries will continue to add a bit of dry snow to this mix at all but low elevations in the coming days.

Around 30 to 60 cm of snow sits above a layer of sugary faceted grains that were buried in mid-February. In some areas, there may be an old layer of feathery surface hoar or facets from late January down 50 to 80 cm deep. There have been no reported avalanches on either of these layers in the region since March 9th in the Crowsnest.

The mid pack is firm and well settled. Some faceted snow and a decomposing melt-freeze crust can be found near the base of the snowpack.

Terrain and Travel

  • Be alert to conditions that change with elevation.
  • Small avalanches can have serious consequences in extreme terrain. Carefully evaluate your line for wind slab hazard before you commit to it.

Valid until: Mar 22nd, 2021 4:00PM