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Avalanche Forecast

Archived

Mar 26th, 2025–Mar 29th, 2025

Alpine
Natural and human triggered avalanches likely.
Treeline
Natural and human triggered avalanches likely.
Below Treeline
Natural avalanches possible, human triggered probable.
Alpine
Natural avalanches possible, human triggered probable.
Treeline
Natural avalanches possible, human triggered probable.
Below Treeline
Natural avalanches unlikely, human triggered possible.
Alpine
Natural avalanches possible, human triggered probable.
Treeline
Natural avalanches possible, human triggered probable.
Below Treeline
Natural avalanches unlikely, human triggered possible.

Regions

Waterton Lakes, Waterton.

This is a good time to avoid all avalanche terrain! We have seen a significant avalanche cycle with the past few days of warming and expect hazard to remain elevated until the snowpack starts to refreeze.

Confidence

High

Avalanche Summary

Numerous natural wet loose avalanches to size 2, several wet slab avalanches to size 2.5 and a few persistent slab avalanches to size 3 were observed on Wednesday.

Snowpack Summary

Surface snow is moist at all elevations with below treeline moist to ground. The snow surface will likely begin refreezing over the next few days. There is a robust melt freeze crust buried 30 - 80 cm deep. This crust exists everywhere except for northerly aspects above 1900 m. The January drought layer lies 50 –130 cm deep, with snow depths at treeline averaging 130–200 cm.

Weather Summary

We are at the tail end of a significant warm up, we should see temperatures start to decrease late on Thursday and then some incoming snow for the weekend. See the table below for a more detailed forecast.

Check out the Mountain Weather Forecast for the most up to date information.

Terrain and Travel Advice

  • Carefully manage your exposure to overhead hazards.
  • Back off slopes as the surface becomes moist or wet with rising temperatures.
  • Avoid thin areas like rocky outcrops where you're most likely to trigger avalanches on deep weak layers.

Problems

Wet Slabs

Wet Slab avalanches are the release of a cohesive layer of snow (a slab) that is generally moist or wet when the flow of liquid water weakens the bond between the slab and the surface below (snow or ground). They often occur during prolonged warming events and/or rain-on-snow events. Wet Slabs can be very unpredictable and destructive.

Loose Wet

Loose Wet avalanches are the release of wet unconsolidated snow or slush. These avalanches typically occur within layers of wet snow near the surface of the snowpack, but they may quickly gouge into lower snowpack layers. Like Loose Dry Avalanches, they start at a point and entrain snow as they move downhill, forming a fan-shaped avalanche. Other names for loose-wet avalanches include point-release avalanches or sluffs. Loose Wet avalanches can trigger slab avalanches that break into deeper snow layers.

Persistent Slabs

Persistent Slab avalanches are the release of a cohesive layer of snow (a slab) in the middle to upper snowpack, when the bond to an underlying persistent weak layer breaks. Persistent layers include: surface hoar, depth hoar, near-surface facets, or faceted snow. Persistent weak layers can continue to produce avalanches for days, weeks or even months, making them especially dangerous and tricky. As additional snow and wind events build a thicker slab on top of the persistent weak layer, this avalanche problem may develop into a Deep Persistent Slab.