Avalanche Forecast

Issued: Feb 7th, 2014 4:00PM

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

Stephen Holeczi, Parks Canada

Banff Yoho Kootenay.

Its a good time to attempt bigger ski and alpine objectives until the weather changes. Just keep the basal layer in mind when poking into the big terrain. Decent powder on sheltered, shady aspects. SH

Summary

Weather Forecast

Its going to be very cold again for the next couple of days with lows in the -30C range, no snow, and light winds. Afternoons should start warming up into the -10C range. On Monday we will switch to a SW flow with the possibility of light snow on Tuesday and a gradual warming trend.

Snowpack Summary

5-10 cm of facetted snow sits on the spotty January 30th surface hoar. In the alpine this snow is over a firm wind slab or facetted sun crust on S & W aspects. In Yoho today, N aspects have powder with minor wind effect from down flowing winds. Compression tests ranging from hard to no result on the basal depth hoar/crust.

Avalanche Summary

No new avalanches have been observed or reported.

Confidence

Due to the number and quality of field observations on Saturday

Problems

Deep Persistent Slabs

The basal layer of depth hoar lies dormant for now, but is a prominent feature of the snowpack. Currently, it will only be possible to trigger from extreme terrain in thin snowpack areas until the weather changes.

Be aware of thin areas that may propogate to deeper instabilites.

Aspects: All aspects.

Elevations: Alpine.

Likelihood

Unlikely

Expected Size

2 - 2

Valid until: Feb 8th, 2014 4:00PM