The wind has arrived. Sustained westerly winds from 40-60 km/hr for the past 24 hours have nuked the alpine riding conditions and created widespread wind effect and windslabs right down into the treeline. After an amazing week of low danger last week, things have changed, and the avalanche danger has risen.
Monday had 24 hours of sustained W winds in the 40-60 km/hr range, and this subsequently destroyed the soft snow down into treeline, and created windspread windloading. Be suspicious of all loaded terrain features on Tuesday.
Reports from the Sunshine Village ski patrol of 16/20 shots in Delerium Dive, releasing windslabs up to 40 cm deep. And Lake Louise ski area reported windslabs forming low in the start zones and releasing size 1.5 from ski cuts and explosives. So things have changed, and the wind has had an effect.
The previously soft surface snow has been hit with wind in alpine areas, creating windslabs. Some of this wind effect is down into the treeline, but mostly 20-40 cm of soft snow still remains at TL and below. Below ~2300 m, a rain crust exists below the storm snow. The mid- and lower-snowpack is well settled where thicker, and facetting where thin. Tree-line snow depths range from 60-100cm
A mostly dry, cool and windy few days ahead as our area is under the influence of a NW flow. Systems embedded in this flow will produce trace amounts of snow, temperatures around -10 and strong winds overnight on Monday - tapering by Tuesday.
Click here for Environment Canada links to weather tables for the region.
