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Avalanche Forecast

Archived

Nov 20th, 2019–Nov 21st, 2019

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

Regions

Glacier.

Today is the first day of the Winter Permit System. Ensure you have a permit to enter the restricted areas, provided they are open today.

A persistent slab has been surprising early season travelers the last few days. Choose conservative lines.

Weather Forecast

The ridge of high pressure has arrived. Sunny skies today with light N'ly winds and freezing levels rising to 1100m. Thurs brings sun with some clouds, light variable winds, and a weak temp inversion with alpine freezing levels reaching 2000m. Friday will see a mix of sun and clouds, light SW winds, and freezing levels near 1700m.

Snowpack Summary

A 35-50cm persistent slab sits on a crust/surface hoar/stellar layer. Below this are several melt-freeze crusts from late October. Tests are showing easy to moderate results on the persistent slab, indicating they are easily triggered by human loads.

Avalanche Summary

Human-triggered avalanches to size 2 were reported from Balu Pass Monday and the Asulkan Hut area over the weekend. The Balu Pass avalanche buried the person to their neck and gear was lost. Numerous natural avalanches to size 2.5-3 were observed from Tupper, Macdonald, and Cheops during the storm Sunday morning.

Confidence

Due to the number of field observations

Problems

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.