Regions
Banff Yoho Kootenay.
Start your day and end your day early; before things heat up.
Weather Forecast
Expect another cooler day for Friday with cloudy skies, scattered flurries. Saturday should see freezing levels rise to treeline, and on sun exposed slopes. Presently Saturday night is forecast to have very poor overnight recovery and Sunday may turn isothermal.
Snowpack Summary
Crusts remained intact through the day above 1600m. Below the crust, isothermal snow exists up to treeline on all aspects, and in thin alpine areas on S aspects. N aspects in the high alpine are more winter like. In many places the upper snowpack sits on a weaker deep persistent layer of rounding facets.
Avalanche Summary
No avalanches observed or reported today.
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.
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.