Kananaskis

Strong winds over the past few days have created widespread windslabs in open terrain at treeline and above. A storm is headed towards the region that may give us up to 25cm of snow and strong winds beginning on Thursday afternoon. Expect avalanche danger to increase.

Moderate

• We are uncertain due to the timing, track, and intensity of the incoming weather system.

Avalanche control on the EEOR produced a few sz 1-2 windslabs that ran to mid path. Otherwise, no new natural avalanche activity was seen over the past 24hrs.

The winds have picked up over the past few days and fresh wind slabs and wind pressed snow now dominates the landscape. There is 35 to 70cm overlying the Feb 14th layer of suncrust, surface hoar and old/or hard wind slabs. Slab development is ongoing with strong to extreme SW-W winds. As snow falls these windslabs will continue to get more reactive. Pay close attention to snow amounts over the next few days.

Winds are set to increase into the 100kph range out of the west on Thursday as a storm begins to push into the region that could give us as much as 30cm of snow by Friday afternoon. Temperatures will be average and around -7C. The bulk of the snow is set to arrive on Thursday evening so we are expecting avalanche danger to increase over the next few days.

More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.

• Recent strong wind means wind slabs may be found farther downslope than expected.
• Expect slab conditions to change drastically as you move into wind-exposed terrain.