Avalanche Forecast

Archived

Apr 14th, 2024–Apr 15th, 2024

Alpine

Natural avalanches unlikely, human triggered possible.

Treeline

Natural avalanches unlikely.

Below Treeline

Below Threshold.

Alpine

Natural avalanches unlikely, human triggered possible.

Treeline

Natural avalanches unlikely.

Below Treeline

Below Threshold.

Alpine

Natural avalanches unlikely, human triggered possible.

Treeline

Natural avalanches unlikely.

Below Treeline

Below Threshold.

Regions

Kananaskis, Bow Valley, Highwood Pass, North 40, Spray - KLakes.

Cooler temperatures and cloud tomorrow will lower the hazard significantly. More snow is predicted for Tuesday

Confidence

High

Avalanche Summary

A late day road patrol had a few loose wet avalanches reported. All aspects and up to sz2. Yesterday afternoon saw a large avalanche in the second EEOR bowl. Sz 3, cornice triggered, ran on the deep persistent layer and wide propagation.

Snowpack Summary

Freezing levels were well above mountaintop today. The Burstall Pass weather station had +11 by 2pm. Moist snow on all aspects today. It's very much a spring snowpack up to about 2300m. Above that there are still layers, including the Feb persistent layer and the deep basal layers.

Weather Summary

Building cloud and increasingly gusty winds for tomorrow. Temperatures will still be above zero, but not by much. Overnight low of -5, high of +2. There may be a few flurries late in the day, but the bulk of the snow will be on Tuesday. It's a ways off, but we could get up to 15cm by Tuesday night.

More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.

Terrain and Travel Advice

The more the snowpack warms-up and weakens, the more conservative you`ll want to be with your terrain selection.
Avoid thin areas like rock outcroppings where you're most likely to trigger avalanches failing on deep weak layers.
Use caution above cliffs and terrain traps where even small avalanches may have severe consequences.

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.

Deep Persistent Slabs

Deep Persistent Slab avalanches are the release of a thick cohesive layer of hard snow (a slab), when the bond breaks between the slab and an underlying persistent weak layer deep in the snowpack. The most common persistent weak layers involved in deep, persistent slabs are depth hoar or facets surrounding a deeply buried crust. Deep Persistent Slabs are typically hard to trigger, are very destructive and dangerous due to the large mass of snow involved, and can persist for months once developed. They are often triggered from areas where the snow is shallow and weak, and are particularly difficult to forecast for and manage.