Avalanche Forecast

Issued: Feb 5th, 2017 3:15PM

The alpine rating is high, the treeline rating is high, and the below treeline rating is considerable. Known problems include Storm Slabs, Loose Dry and Persistent Slabs.

jeremy.mackenzie, Alberta Parks

Kananaskis.

Avoid all avalanche terrain.

Summary

Confidence

Moderate -

Weather Forecast

Cold temperatures tonight and on Monday with temperatures near -22 °C with light East winds. A further 15cm is expected by the end of Monday. The sun may shows it's face again on Tuesday, but it won't warm up until later in the week.

Avalanche Summary

Numerous skier remote triggered avalanches up to size 1.0 on all aspects at Treeline and below. Trigger distances ranged from 3 to 40 metres. These avalanches were up to 30cm thick. and occurred on relatively low angle lightly treed slopes. Suspect numerous naturally triggered avalanches ranging from size 2.0 to 3.0 on all aspects. Visibility was very poor, and a few debris piles were directly observed today.

Snowpack Summary

Up to 50cm of new snow in the past 24hrs, with storm snow totals now as much as 80cm at Treeline now overlies the previously formed hard wind slab in most areas. At lower elevations the snowpack has doubled in just 2 days. Minimal wind effect at Treeline so far, but expect more in the Alpine (unconfirmed due to very poor visibility). Very touchy shears within the storm snow down 10 to 30cm, which were easily triggered remotely, from as far away as 40 metres, by the forecasting team today.

Problems

Storm Slabs

With up to 80cm of snow in the past 48 hours, storm slabs are very touchy to human triggering. Forecasters experienced numerous remotely triggered avalanches on Sunday.

Be careful with wind loaded pockets, especially near ridge crests and roll-overs.Avoid freshly wind loaded features.Use caution in lee areas in the alpine and treeline. Recent storm snow has formed touchy slabs.

Aspects: All aspects.

Elevations: All elevations.

Likelihood

Very Likely - Certain

Expected Size

1 - 3

Loose Dry

Large amounts of new snow is producing widespread sluffing.

Sluffs may trigger deeper instabilities.Be cautious of sluffing in steep terrain.

Aspects: All aspects.

Elevations: All elevations.

Likelihood

Very Likely - Certain

Expected Size

1 - 2

Persistent Slabs

Triggering of these slabs from a thin weak area may cause an avalanche that involves the entire snowpack. With the recent additional snow load, triggering of these deeper layers is now more likely.

Use caution on open slopes and convex rolls Be aware of thin areas that may propogate to deeper instabilites.Minimize exposure during periods of heavy loading from new snow and wind.

Aspects: North, North East, East, South East, South.

Elevations: Alpine, Treeline.

Likelihood

Likely

Expected Size

2 - 4

Valid until: Feb 6th, 2017 2:00PM