Waterton Lakes

This week was marked by a large atmospheric river that brough high freezing levels and over 1m of snow to the alpine. With all this new load careful travel and snowpack assessment will be required. Below treeline this precip fell as rain and flushed much of the snowpack out. Travel on skis below treeline will be very difficult.

Numerous natural slab and wet loose avalanches were observed this week during the storm with results up to size 3.

In the alpine up to 100cm of snow fell between Mon-Thurs with strong SW winds forming windslabs in lee features. A crust and facet layer make up the bottom of the snowpack, treeline and above, in isolated places that held early season snow. Below 1700m this weeks precip fell as rain/snow and saturated the snowpack. With cooler temps this has begun to refreeze into crust. Alpine snowpack depths 70-150cm however below treeline is as low as 15cm with vegetation and logs exposed.

Fri

Overcast skies with 10cm snow. Winds 40km/h SW. Valley bottom temps around -5

Sat

Clearing by noon with some AM flurries. Winds increase to 30km/h SW. Valley temps 0 degrees

Sun

Broken skies, no significant precipitation expected. Winds 30km/h SW. Temps remaining warm at valley bottom, high +2

For current weather forecast, please see Mountain Weather Forecast

Current ECC weather table can be found Here

• If triggered, wind slabs avalanches may step down to deeper layers resulting in larger avalanches.