Avalanche Forecast

Issued: Nov 8th, 2012 4:15PM

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

snow safety, Parks Canada

Banff Yoho Kootenay.

Summary

Weather Forecast

Temperatures will continue to drop tonight to 15C for tomorrow's high and -20C friday night.Â Winds should be light Easterly. Expect a few flurries along the divide tonight.Â Sunny skies forecasted for Saturday, but still -15C.

Snowpack Summary

Snowpack depths range from 50 cm (Bow Summit) to 80 cm along & west of the divide.Â The midpack Nov 6 rain crust is about 5 cm thick with 20-40 cm of llight snow on top..Â Except for isolated wind affected features, there is a good bond to this layer.

Avalanche Summary

Only a few isolated hard slabs (40 cm thick) have been found to be reactive to ski cutting on the rain crust on alpine South aspects in the Lake Louise area.Â No new avalanches have been observed, but the visibility was poor today.Â

Confidence

Problems

Wind Slabs

We have very few observations from the alpine, but suspect there may be some thin windslabs in the immediate lee of features. Watch for reverse windloading on features from the recent East winds.

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

Elevations: Alpine.

Likelihood

Unlikely - Possible

Expected Size

1 - 2

Persistent Slabs

There is 20-40 cm of light density storm snow on the supportive Nov 6 raincrust. Generally bonding well to the crust now, except in a few select areas where the local wind has created a slab. See our NEW AVALANCHE OBSERVATION tab for more details!

Aspects: All aspects.

Elevations: Alpine.

Likelihood

Unlikely - Possible

Expected Size

1 - 2

Valid until: Nov 9th, 2012 4:00PM