Regions
Banff Yoho Kootenay.
The drought continues and the avalanche danger is slowly decreasing. Be mindful of steep rocky or shallower snowpack areas where you may tickle the basal facets. LP
Weather Forecast
Cooler temperatures are forecasted for the remainder of the week and generally light winds. Expect to see some light flurries Wednesday, but they will not amount to much in accumulation. Heat & solar related avalanches should not be an issue tomorrow with the forecasted cooler temperatures and overcast skies.
Snowpack Summary
A well settled upper snowpack with highly variable depths sits over the ever present weak facets and depth hoar in the bottom half of the snowpack. Colder temperatures have helped the slab bridge over the weaker base. Expect to find some wind slabs in lee areas in the alpine.
Avalanche Summary
No new avalanches reported today. A few size 1-2 loose wet avalanches observed out of steep solar aspects on Monday. A larger size 2.5 slab on a south aspect of Mt. Redoubt also occurred on Monday afternoon during the heat of the day.
Problems
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.