Deep Persistent Slabs
- Alpine
- Treeline
- Below treeline
- Likelihood
- Unlikely
- Size
- 2–3.5
Thin snowpack areas is where you may be able to trigger this weakness that propagates out into a deeper snowpack area.
LOW avalanche hazard doesn't mean NO avalanche hazard.
Watch for thin weak areas where there is potential to trigger the deep persistent weakness. Skiing is challenging due to wind-pressed surfaces and crusts from the warm temperatures last week.
Thin snowpack areas is where you may be able to trigger this weakness that propagates out into a deeper snowpack area.
No new avalanches have been observed or reported in a few days.
Surface hoar continues to grow up to treeline elevation up to 10mm in size. Most of the terrain at treeline and above consists of a hard surface with either some re-crystalized snow or a thin wind crust on top of it. Solar aspects had a burly melt freeze crust in steeper areas from the warm temps last week.
Also of note, the tree bombs that fell last week have frozen hard and can make for some challenging skiing below treeline.
The November crust is deeply buried down 120--200cm and is more of a concern in thin/rocky snowpack areas.
Temperatures around -10 on Saturday with a trace of snow in the forecast. Looks to be a cloudy day with mainly overcast conditions and moderate winds out of the north.
https://hpfx.collab.science.gc.ca/~fsg006/productviewer/ab/table/AB_Rockies_Forecast.html
More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.