Avalanche Forecast
Regions: Bow Valley, Highwood Pass, Kananaskis, North 40, Spray - KLakes.
Up to 10cm of snow is forecast to fall in the region late in the day on Saturday. As the snow arrives we expect the danger to increase back into the Moderate range so keep a close eye on the weather as you travel.
Confidence
Moderate
Avalanche Summary
Nothing new observed in the last couple of days.
Snowpack Summary
4-6cm of recent snow at treeline and above has been moved around by light winds out of the SW. This snow has fallen on a variety of different snow surfaces from hard windslabs, rocks and some very isolated surface hoar at lower elevations. The December 5th rain crust can still be found down 30-40cm but it is breaking down in lower elevation areas. The main concern is the weak basal facets and depth hoar and concerns for triggering from thin steep snowpack areas.
Weather Summary
Temperatures on Saturday will be in the -8C range with overnight winds (Friday to Saturday) in the strong to moderate range out of the SW decreasing to light by Saturday morning. During the late afternoon on Saturday, expect winds to switch out of the NE as cooler temperatures arrive. This upslope flow is forecast to give us around 10cm of snow.
More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.
Terrain and Travel Advice
- In areas where deep persistent slabs may exist, avoid shallow or variable depth snowpacks and unsupported terrain features.
- Dial back your terrain choices if you are seeing more than 20 cm of new snow.
Avalanche Problems
Deep Persistent Slabs
This problem will be with us all season. At higher elevations there is more concern that these deep persistent weak layers could be human triggerable.
Aspects: North, North East, East, South East, South.
Elevations: Alpine.
Likelihood: Unlikely - Possible
Expected Size: 1.5 - 3