20cm of new snow coupled with extreme SW winds on Sunday night and Monday morning will push the hazard levels to HIGH. Avoid avalanche terrain.
Extreme winds have created new slabs at treeline and alpine elevations. With the incoming snow and continued extreme winds on Monday, these slabs will get deeper and more widespread.
Wind slabs in the upper snowpack may step down to the Jan 29th interface down 50-100cm. Dig down and evaluate this interface as you travel.
It's windy! Sunday evening will see wind speeds reaching 150km/h at ridgetop out of the SW and there is a wind warning in effect. By Monday morning the winds will slow down to 100km/h, and further decrease to 50km/h by the afternoon. Even for K-country this is extreme winds. Temperatures on Monday should climb to -5 by midday, and as much as 20cm of new snow is expected at Treeline elevations, with possibly rain in the Bow Valley.
No new avalanche activity was observed Sunday, but visibility was limited.
Extreme winds on Sunday are stripping all the remaining snow from windward aspects and depositing that snow into lee and cross-loaded features. Wind slabs are widespread at Treeline and above, and can even be found in open areas at lower elevations. The depths of the wind slabs are highly variable (5 to 80cm), as is the sensitivity to triggering. In exposed Alpine areas expect hard, dense wind slab conditions, but as you loose elevation these slabs are softer and potentially more triggerable. Be mindful of rapidly changing conditions as you travel through the terrain.
