Avalanche Forecast

Issued: Jan 25th, 2019 3:00PM

The alpine rating is moderate, the treeline rating is moderate, and the below treeline rating is low. Known problems include Deep Persistent Slabs and Wind Slabs.

Alberta Parks mike.koppang, Alberta Parks

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Kananaskis.

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!!!

Summary

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. 

Problems

Deep Persistent Slabs

An icon showing Deep Persistent Slabs
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.
Carefully evaluate and use caution around thin snowpack areas.Be aware of the potential for full depth avalanches due to weak layers at the base of the snowpack.

Aspects: North, North East, East, South East, South, North West.

Elevations: All elevations.

Likelihood

Possible

Expected Size

1.5 - 3

Wind Slabs

An icon showing Wind Slabs
An improving bond is helping to ease the concern with this layer, but still watch for it in immediate lee areas.
Caution in lee and cross-loaded terrain near ridge crests.Be aware of thin areas that may propogate to deeper instabilites.

Aspects: North, North East, East, South East.

Elevations: Alpine.

Likelihood

Unlikely - Possible

Expected Size

1 - 2.5

Valid until: Jan 26th, 2019 2:00PM

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