Avalanche Forecast

Issued: Jan 4th, 2020 4:00PM

The alpine rating is considerable, the treeline rating is moderate, and the below treeline rating is moderate.

Avalanche Canada ahanna, Avalanche Canada

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South Rockies.

Recent snow and strong winds have formed windslabs in open areas in all elevation bands. The best and safest riding can be found in areas sheltered from the wind.

Summary

Confidence

Moderate - Uncertainty is due to the fact that deep persistent slabs are particularly difficult to forecast.

Weather Forecast

Saturday night: Flurries accumulating trace. Moderate west to southwest winds. Alpine temperatures around -9 C, freezing levels valley bottom.

Sunday: Mix of sun and cloud with isolated flurries. Moderate southwest winds. Alpine temperatures around -7 C, freezing levels valley bottom.

Monday: Mix of sun and cloud with isolated flurries. Moderate southwest winds. Alpine temperatures around -4 C, freezing levels valley bottom.

Tuesday: Mix of sun and cloud with flurries bringing 5-10 cm of snow. Moderate southwest winds. Alpine temperatures around -1 C, freezing levels rising to 1700 m in the south of the region.

Avalanche Summary

On Saturday we received a report of a remotely triggered windslab that slid on a crust in an open area below treeline. Explosive control work produced windslab avalanches up to size 2 on Thursday. 

The chance of full depth avalanches has diminished since the very large deep persistent slab avalanche cycle around Christmas, but neighboring Kananaskis Country is still occasionally observing the odd large persistent slab avalanche, as recently as Friday. Conditions which may cause these deep layers to wake up and become active include: unusually high accumulations of new snow or wind-blown snow; rapid and prolonged warming; or from human-triggering in a thin, rocky start zone.

Snowpack Summary

Recent snow and strong winds have formed fresh wind slabs up to 30 cm deep in the alpine and open areas at treeline. A reasonably consolidated upper snowpack overlies a weak base. The bottom 30-50 cm of the snowpack consists of weak facets and crusts. Although these layers have been unreactive in recent snowpack tests and have not produced avalanche activity recently, there is the potential for them to wake up with large loads or significant warming.

Terrain and Travel

  • Keep your guard up at lower elevations. Wind slab formation has been extensive.
  • Seek out sheltered terrain where new snow hasn't been wind-affected.
  • Avoid steep, rocky, and wind effected areas where triggering slabs is more likely.
  • Be careful with wind slabs, especially in steep, unsupported and/or convex terrain features.
  • If triggered, wind slabs avalanches may step down to deeper layers resulting in larger avalanches.

Valid until: Jan 5th, 2020 5:00PM

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