Avalanche forecast

Waterton Lakes

Feb 23 – 26, 2016Parks Canada
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Archived · expired 11 years ago

Avalanche danger

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

Ski conditions at upper elevations have recovered dramatically since last week, don't let sunny skies and great skiing drive your decision making process.

Avalanche problems

  • Persistent Slabs

    • Alpine
    • Treeline
    • Below treeline
    Likelihood
    Unlikely
    Size
    1–3
    While mostly unlikely to trigger, buried layers of old windslab over a couple of buried crusts have the potential for wide propagation. Use a probe or a pole to check for the presence of these buried layers.

  • Storm Slabs

    • Alpine
    • Treeline
    • Below treeline
    Likelihood
    Possible - Likely
    Size
    1–2
    Fresh storm slabs remained touchy through the weekend. These can be managed readily with ski cutting in appropriately non-consequential terrain, but may be large enough to be destructive in bigger terrain features.

Weather Forecast

A ridge of high pressure is building over Western Canada that is forecast to bring settled weather through the week. Skies will be mostly clear, with light and variable ridge top winds, and freezing levels remaining near valley bottom.

Snowpack Summary

10-15cm new snow near the divide Friday night created touchy storm slabs. At treeline and in the alpine this covers the previous layers of stiff windslab over a couple of buried crusts, down as deep as 55cm and 70cm (widespread below 2200m and extending into the alpine on solar aspects). Below treeline is dust on crust over a strong snowpack.

Avalanche Summary

A few natural size 1.0-2.0 storm slab avalanches have been observed and reported over the weekend. Ski cutting on Saturday and Sunday easily produced size 1.0 storm slab avalanches in sufficiently steep terrain (it's easy to imagine that these would have been up to size 1.5 in larger terrain features)

Confidence

Regions covered