Avalanche Forecast
Issued: Jan 20th, 2016 8:02AM
The alpine rating is , the treeline rating is , and the below treeline rating is Known problems include Persistent Slabs.
danyelle magnan,
Parks Canada
Expect solar triggered avalanches if the sun comes out today; minimize your exposure to avalanche paths if they are in the sun. A storm arriving on Thursday has the potential to pack a punch, bumping up danger.
Summary
Weather Forecast
Flurries should taper off this morning, with broken skies and sunny breaks possible this afternoon. Alpine temps will be around -6, with moderate W'ly winds. A system arriving later on Thursday will bring up to 20cm by Friday morning, with strong SW winds. On Friday the storm continues with freezing levels rising to 1700m and another 20cm of snow.
Snowpack Summary
Low density powder overlies a soft slab that sits on the January 4th interface, down ~40cm. This interface is variable; with the largest surface hoar below 1700m. It appears to be touchiest in our region on steep S-SW aspects where the surface hoar sits on a sun crust, as shown in this video. On other aspects it sits on ~20cm of loose facets.
Avalanche Summary
A size 2.5 was accidentally triggered by skiers yesterday. The avalanche was on a S aspect at 2500m, was 40-50cm deep, 40m wide and ran 200m. In addition, numerous natural avalanches occurred, many triggered by solar. Most were size 2, occurring from all aspects and ran onto the avalanche fans. Sluffing continues to occur when skiing steep slopes.
Confidence
Intensity of incoming weather systems is uncertain
Problems
Persistent Slabs
Below the light surface snow a soft slab sits on a touchy layer (see details tab). This layer is variable and hard to predict. It has been easily triggered where a sun crust is buried, but may also become more reactive at lower elevations.
Use caution on open slopes and convex rolls Ride slopes one at a time and spot your partners from safe locations.
Aspects: All aspects.
Elevations: All elevations.
Likelihood
Expected Size
Valid until: Jan 21st, 2016 8:00AM
