Avalanche forecast

Yukon

Dec 9 – 10, 2021Avalanche Canada
View on map
Archived · expired 5 years ago

Avalanche danger

Sat
Sun
Alpine
2 · Moderate
Treeline
2 · Moderate
Below
No rating

Highlights

It's a good time to go out, assessing slopes as you travel. If you get into wind affected terrain watch for windslabs, shooting cracks and drumming sounds. Thin snowpack areas are where you're most likely to tickle the basal weakness so don't have snowy slopes above you. 

Avalanche problems

  • Storm Slabs

    • Alpine
    • Treeline
    • Below treeline
    Likelihood
    Possible - Likely
    Size
    1.5–2.5

    The region picked up 15 to 20 cm of new snow Tuesday & Wednesday without much wind. There was likely enough southerly wind for isolated wind slabs north facing terrain where it has likely been formed into slabs. 

  • Deep Persistent Slabs

    • Alpine
    • Treeline
    • Below treeline
    Likelihood
    Possible
    Size
    2–3

    Whumpfing from thin snowpack areas in Fraser Chutes confirms this thing is real. The risk I picture is whumpfing from a thin rocky area and triggering a slope above you where it's down 100cm or more.

Terrain and Travel

  • Start with conservative lines and watch for clues of instability.
  • Watch for signs of instability like whumpfing, hollow sounds, shooting cracks or recent avalanches.
  • Avoid thin areas like rock outcroppings where you're most likely to trigger avalanches failing on deep weak layers.

Confidence

Moderate - Uncertainty is due to the limited number of field observations.

Weather Forecast

A quiet Thursday followed by stormy Friday

WEDNESDAY NIGHT: Light winds and precipitation ending. Temperatures have fallen to -10C and should continue dropping to around -15C overnight.

THURSDAY: Broken cloud cover, daytime high temp around -12 C, light wind generally out of the southwest, no snow expected.South winds expected to crank up Thursday night.

FRIDAY: The day will arrive with a bang: strong to extreme winds and around 10 cm of snow. A bit more during the day. as the storm and wind wind down. High temp around -10 C.

SATURDAY: Broken or overcast sky, light north east wind, a few flurries, and cooling temperatures nudging towards -20's C.

Avalanche Summary

Our AvCan field team reports whumpfs and shooting cracks up to 10 m from thin snowpack areas in the Fraser Chutes today (Wednesday).

Snowpack Summary

Regions covered