Kananaskis

A few large avalanches have occurred in the past 24hrs. Dangerous avalanche conditions exist at upper elevations.

Moderate -

Tuesday will be cloudy with sunny periods and isolated flurries. Alpine temperature will be near -9 °C. Winds remain strong out of the SW. Wednesday may bring a few cm's of new snow.

Avalanche activity has increased in the past 24 hours. A size 3.0 naturally triggered slab avalanche occurred in the past 24 hours on a steep north aspect in the Alpine. This avalanche is expected to have run on the Dec 15th interface, and the slide ran full path. In addition, a couple of size 2.0 slab avalanches occurred on steep East aspects at Treeline. These slabs appeared to initiate on the Jan 6th interface and then step down to the Dec 15th interface with fracture depths up to 80cm.

Several days of very strong winds has led to widespread wind slab conditions in the Alpine and open areas at Treeline. These are found on all aspects except west, where the winds have stripped the windward slopes down to bare rock. At 2250m and below there are now 3 layers of buried surface hoar. These are referred to as the Jan 18th, Jan 6th and Dec 15th surface hoar layers, down 25, 50 and 100cm respectively. Recent snowpack stability tests indicate that all these layers are reactive, with the Jan 6th and Dec 15th layers the most concerning as there is now sufficient overlying slab to be an avalanche problem. The November and October crusts deeper in the snowpack are being tracked but remain inactive at the moment.