Avalanche forecast

Kananaskis

Jan 25 – 26, 2019Alberta Parks
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Archived · expired 8 years ago

Avalanche danger

Sun
Mon
Alpine
2 · Moderate
Treeline
2 · Moderate
Below
1 · Low
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Highlights

No major weather systems are headed out way this weekend.  Thin areas are the places where you could awake the basal weaknesses. Most popular areas are hammerred!!!

Avalanche problems

  • Wind Slabs

    • Alpine
    • Treeline
    • Below treeline
    Likelihood
    Unlikely - Possible
    Size
    1–2.5
    An improving bond is helping to ease the concern with this layer, but still watch for it in immediate lee areas.

  • Deep Persistent Slabs

    • Alpine
    • Treeline
    • Below treeline
    Likelihood
    Possible
    Size
    1.5–3
    Two different layers are included in this problem. To make it even trickier, in some places they'll react as one, and in others they will fail separately, but quickly step down. In either case, triggering it will produce a large avalanche.

Confidence

High -

Weather Forecast

Kinda a stable pattern for Saturday.  We may see a few dribbles of snow but nothing major and we need major!!!!  We need snow as we are well below average for this time of year.  Temperature warm up on Saturday and then the cooler air moves in on Sunday.  There is a chance that 10-15cm of snow may fall with an upslope system on Sunday but not all model agree on this occurring. 

Avalanche Summary

No new avalanches were observed over the past 24hrs.

Snowpack Summary

The midpack of the current snowpack is slowly strengthening.  Current two main issues exist within the snowpack.  First, the Jan 17th layer is now buring under 10-15cm of snow.  Not enough load to be a concern yet, but in time this will be a problem layer worth remembering.  Second is the deeper basal weaknesses.  The facets and depth hoar that exist at the base of the snowpack are weak and sensitive to human triggerring especially from a thin snowpack area.  Use careful route selection as you move through the terrain. 

Regions covered