Bulletin d’avalanche

Kananaskis

Mar 16 – 17, 2016Alberta Parks
Voir sur la carte
Archivé · expiré 11 years ago

Danger d’avalanche

Fri
Sat
Alpin
3 · Marqué
Limite forestière
2 · Modéré
Sous la limite
1 · Faible
Ouvrir la carte complète

Points saillants

Wind slab conditions are highly variable. A natural avalanche cycle seems to be tapering off, but conditions are ripe for human-triggering. Choose conservative terrain as full depth avalanches are possible due to lingering deep instabilities.

Problèmes avalancheux

  • Wind Slabs

    • Alpin
    • Limite forestière
    • Sous la limite forestière
    Probabilité
    Possible - Likely
    Taille
    2–5
    Wind slabs up to 40cm thick are present in lee and cross-loaded features in alpine areas and in very specific locations at treeline. Some reverse wind-loading has occurred due to northerly winds. Overall, wind slab conditions are widely variable.

  • Cornices

    • Alpin
    • Limite forestière
    • Sous la limite forestière
    Probabilité
    Possible
    Taille
    1–5
    Cornices are large and we have seen a few collapse recently with the warmer temperatures and continued loading. When these do fail the heavy loads on underlying slopes may awaken the basal instabilities and produce very large avalanches.

  • Deep Persistent Slabs

    • Alpin
    • Limite forestière
    • Sous la limite forestière
    Probabilité
    Possible
    Taille
    3–6
    Basal facets and the Jan 6th interface are possible to be triggered from thinner snowpack areas. Several recent naturally triggered avalanches have failed to ground.

Confidence

High

Weather Forecast

Thursday will bring cloudy skies with sunny periods and isolated flurries. Alpine temperatures will reach a high of -8 °C. Ridge-top winds will be out of the west at 25 km/h gusting to 50 km/h. A clearing and warming trend is expected for the weekend with freezing levels rising significantly by Saturday.

Avalanche Summary

A few very small loose dry avalanches from steep Alpine terrain on N and E aspects. Further evidence of a recent (past 48+ hours) natural slab avalanche cycle up to size 3.0 on North, East and South aspects in the Alpine. These slabs vary in thickness from 60 to 100cm and some exhibited significant propagation. Some slides have also stepped to ground after originally initiating on a weakness in the mid-snowpack.

Snowpack Summary

Variable wind effect in lee and cross-loaded features in the Alpine and isolated areas at Treeline. Some reverse wind-loading due to recent northerly winds. Numerous buried crusts are found on solar aspects which were producing generally moderate shears down 32 and 50cm in snowpack stability tests today at 2300m. Cornices continue to grow with several failures observed over the past several days.

Régions couvertes