Avalanche Forecast

Issued: Jan 9th, 2018 4:35PM

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

snow safety, Parks Canada

Banff Yoho Kootenay.

Heads up skiers and climbers! With fresh snow and winds the Dec 15 layer will soon wake up. Pay attention to new snowfall amounts and fresh wind slabs.

Summary

Weather Forecast

Cooling trend with up to 10 cm new snow at tree-line and moderate SW winds forecasted for Wednesday. High pressure ridge will start to rebuild over area on Friday.

Snowpack Summary

25-40cm of snow sits over the Dec 15 layer which consists of surface hoar, sun crust, or facets depending on location. Easy to mod shears found on this layer. Below this the snowpack is heavily faceted with remnants of older crust's still lingering throughout, but no significant shears found in the lower pack. Some isolated windslabs near ridgetop.

Avalanche Summary

No natural avalanches observed or reported in past 24 hours.

Confidence

Problems

Wind Slabs

Recent and forecasted snow will be moved around by the SW winds and forming fresh wind slabs in the alpine. These slabs can fail on the the Dec 15 interface which is showing easy to moderate shears.

Use caution in lee areas. Recent wind loading has created wind slabs.

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

Elevations: Alpine, Treeline.

Likelihood

Possible - Likely

Expected Size

1 - 2

Valid until: Jan 10th, 2018 4:00PM