Avalanche forecast

Banff Yoho Kootenay

Jan 29 – 30, 2014Parks Canada
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Archived · expired 13 years ago

Avalanche danger

Wed
Thu
Alpine
2 · Moderate
Treeline
2 · Moderate
Below
1 · Low
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Highlights

Winds and cold temperatures have created many weak areas in the alpine and treeline elevations this year. This gives us low confidence in the snowpack in bigger terrain at these elevations. Good skiing can still be found on sheltered non solar slopes

Avalanche problems

  • Deep Persistent Slabs

    • Alpine
    • Treeline
    • Below treeline
    Likelihood
    Unlikely - Possible
    Size
    1–3
    The basal facets are lying dormant for now. However, the possibility of triggering from a weak spot (thin, shallow, rocky area) remains real.

Avalanche Summary

No new avalanches observed in the past several days.

Confidence

Due to the number of field observations

Weather Forecast

A weak front is forecast to bring up to 5 cm of snow with light winds Wednesday overnight with valley temperatures in the -5 to -10 range.  On Thurs and Fri we will return to high pressure with sunny skies and lows in the -15 to -20 range. Likely, we will get temperature inversions (temperatures colder in the valleys than in the alpine).

Snowpack Summary

The Jan 25th surface hoar layer is buried under 5 cm of snow in the Bow Summit area, but remains on the surface in most of the forecast region. This will become a weak layer to watch in the future. Strong solar radiation has formed a suncrust on S & W facing slopes. The basal facets remain weak, but the overall snowpack is gaining strength.

Regions covered