Avalanche Forecast

Moderate -

Wednesday night: Clear. Light east winds. Freezing levels remaining near 3100 metres.Thursday: Sunny. Light east winds. Alpine high temperatures around +7 with freezing levels to 3200 metres, remaining elevated overnight.Friday: Sunny with cloud increasing in the evening. Light west winds. Alpine temperatures around +7 with freezing levels around 3000 metres, dropping overnight to 2000 metres by mid-morning Saturday.Saturday: Cloudy with wet flurries bringing up to 5 cm of new snow to higher elevations and light rain below about 1500 metres, continuing overnight. Light southwest winds. Alpine temperatures dropping to about 0 or -1 mid-morning with freezing levels around 1900 metres.

Tuesday's reports show continued loose wet avalanches reaching size 2 on sun-exposed aspects. Several loose wet avalanches were observed triggering smaller slab releases, thereby increasing in size and destructive potential.Reports from Sunday and Monday showed a continuation of natural loose wet avalanche activity focused on sun exposed aspects, with some releases reaching size 2.5 as they gouged into the snowpack to entrain more mass. Several large persistent slab releases have also been noted failing on large alpine features and reaching size 2.5. Failure planes in these events seem to indicate faceted snow in the mid-snowpack. At least one northeast aspect figured in these reports, suggesting some increasing potential for shaded aspects.On Saturday, neighbouring regions (for example Kananaskis Country and the South Rockies) where the snowpack is thinner and weaker entered a natural avalanche cycle involving most aspects, most elevations, and most snowpack layers.Looking forward, the type of activity shown above can be expected to continue and potentially expand to all aspects as temperatures remain elevated and overnight cooling remains weak.

Upper snowpack: Getting warm and moist during the day, maybe forming weak crusts overnight that deteriorate during the day. On sunny aspects the upper snowpack has become increasingly isothermal (slushy and cohesionless) with successive days of warming. On lee slopes there may be buried hard layers of wind effected snow (buried wind slabs).Mid pack: The mid-snowpack consists of sugary faceted grains (facets) of different hardness. Recent loose wet avalanches have been gouging into this faceted snow and entraining additional mass. Occasional slab fractures have also initiated above these facets.The lower snowpack has recently been reported to be strong in deep snowpack regions, but its strength is in doubt in shallower areas where the long February cold was able to penetrate and weaken even basal snowpack layers. Some of the largest recent slab avalanches have initiated in thin snowpack areas in the alpine.It's a good time to stand aside and let the mountains shed their coat. Stability will improve greatly when temperatures cool off.