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Avalanche Forecast

Archived

Dec 13th, 2020–Dec 14th, 2020

Alpine
Natural avalanches unlikely, human triggered possible.
Treeline
Natural avalanches unlikely.
Below Treeline
Natural avalanches unlikely.
Alpine
Natural avalanches unlikely, human triggered possible.
Treeline
Natural avalanches unlikely.
Below Treeline
Natural avalanches unlikely.
Alpine
Below Threshold.
Treeline
Below Threshold.
Below Treeline
Below Threshold.

Regions

Kananaskis.

Still pretty good skiing right now. The thing to watch will be the incoming wind. Its K-Country, we know they are coming, but we don't know exactly when. Keep your eyes open for it.

Confidence

High -

Weather Forecast

Morning low of -15 with a daytime high of -10C. Trace snow and light winds from the west. Alpine winds will increase during the day and max out at 30-35km/hr, still from the west.

Avalanche Summary

Nothing new today.

Snowpack Summary

A hint of wind last night moved some snow around up high which created a few non-reactive windslabs. We seem to have a slightly different snowpack in each drainage. In the Hero's Knob area the new snow rests on a solid mid-pack made up of either a windslab, or a thick re-frozen layer from the warm spell awhile back. In many places the crust is smooth and its easy to scrub off the storm snow. For now all the crusts are well settled and hard to trigger.

Terrain and Travel

  • Be careful with wind loaded pockets, especially near ridge crests and roll-overs.
  • Avoid thin areas like rock outcroppings where you're most likely to trigger avalanches failing on deep weak layers.

Problems

Wind Slabs

Wind Slab avalanches are the release of a cohesive layer of snow (a slab) formed by the wind. Wind typically transports snow from the upwind sides of terrain features and deposits snow on the downwind side. Wind slabs are often smooth and rounded and sometimes sound hollow, and can range from soft to hard. Wind slabs that form over a persistent weak layer (surface hoar, depth hoar, or near-surface facets) may be termed Persistent Slabs or may develop into Persistent Slabs.

Persistent Slabs

Persistent Slab avalanches are the release of a cohesive layer of snow (a slab) in the middle to upper snowpack, when the bond to an underlying persistent weak layer breaks. Persistent layers include: surface hoar, depth hoar, near-surface facets, or faceted snow. Persistent weak layers can continue to produce avalanches for days, weeks or even months, making them especially dangerous and tricky. As additional snow and wind events build a thicker slab on top of the persistent weak layer, this avalanche problem may develop into a Deep Persistent Slab.