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Avalanche Forecast

Archived

Apr 22nd, 2021–Apr 23rd, 2021

Alpine
Below Threshold.
Treeline
Below Threshold.
Below Treeline
Below Threshold.
Alpine
Below Threshold.
Treeline
Below Threshold.
Below Treeline
Below Threshold.
Alpine
Below Threshold.
Treeline
Below Threshold.
Below Treeline
Below Threshold.

Regions

Jasper.

Cooler temperatures the next couple of days helps overall stability. A little bit of new snow will improve ski quality. 

Weather Forecast

Friday will bring clouds, flurries, a trace amount of snow, -6 C, light winds, and 1400m freezing level. Saturday will be clouds, sun, flurries, trace of snow,  -10 to -4C, light East winds, and 1700m freezing level.

Snowpack Summary

Expect a little bit of snow on a supportive melt-freeze crust on all aspects and elevations except for most high Northerly where it can be dry and powdery. The mid-pack is thick and supportive. Weak faceted crystals linger at the bottom of the snowpack and remain a concern particularly in shallow snow-packs.

Avalanche Summary

No patrol occurred on Thursday and nothing new was reported. Wednesday's field patrol in the Icefields noted one loose wet slab size 2 and another slab to ground on SW face size 2 in the Sunwapta falls area.

Confidence

Problems

Loose Wet

Loose Wet avalanches are the release of wet unconsolidated snow or slush. These avalanches typically occur within layers of wet snow near the surface of the snowpack, but they may quickly gouge into lower snowpack layers. Like Loose Dry Avalanches, they start at a point and entrain snow as they move downhill, forming a fan-shaped avalanche. Other names for loose-wet avalanches include point-release avalanches or sluffs. Loose Wet avalanches can trigger slab avalanches that break into deeper snow layers.

Cornices

Cornice Fall is the release of an overhanging mass of snow that forms as the wind moves snow over a sharp terrain feature, such as a ridge, and deposits snow on the downwind (leeward) side. Cornices range in size from small wind drifts of soft snow to large overhangs of hard snow that are 30 feet (10 meters) or taller. They can break off the terrain suddenly and pull back onto the ridge top and catch people by surprise even on the flat ground above the slope. Even small cornices can have enough mass to be destructive and deadly. Cornice Fall can entrain loose surface snow or trigger slab avalanches.

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.