Kananaskis

If you thought Wednesday was warm, wait for tomorrow! We'll be well into double digits in valley bottoms and not that far behind in the upper elevations. Limit exposure to sunny slopes and overhead hazard.

A small, sz 1.5 cornice fell off of Snow Peak today with a few sluffs noted in the higher hills.

Wide variety of surface conditions depending on aspect and elevation. These include sastrugi, hard wind slab, soft wind slab, breakable sun crust, and limited quantities of soft snow in sheltered locations. Valley temps hit +7 today. Expect moist snow in the valley bottoms and on solar aspects to have formed a new crust, or at the every least made the existing crust thicker. Recent storm snow is being redistributed by strong winds in the Alpine. Fresh surface wind slabs averaging 30cm deep are forming in lee and cross-loaded terrain at upper elevations. The two surface hoar layers can be found 5-10cm below the surface and 35-50cm below the surface; they are breaking down and not likely to be triggerable. The deep persistent layer of the November rain crust is being monitored, but likely only triggerable in shallow snowpack areas.

Tomorrow could be exceptionally warm. Expect a high of +4 at 2200m tomorrow! That puts the forecasted freezing level up to about 2400m. Pretty toasty for February. To make it even more pronounced, the sun should be shining for most of the day with west winds providing little surface cooling.

More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.

• Watch for newly formed and reactive wind slabs as you transition into wind-affected terrain.
• Avoid steep, sun-exposed slopes when the air temperature is warm or when solar radiation is strong.