Kananaskis

UPDATED Sunday morning: Warmer then forecasted temperatures yesterday caused a spike in hazard. This will likely happen today too. Bulletin update reflects this anticipated change.

Cracking and whumpfing over the past few days indicates that the recently formed windslabs are able to be triggered by skiers/boarders. Keep an eye out for these problems as you transition into more treeline/Alpine areas.

• Back off if you encounter whumpfing, hollow sounds, or shooting cracks.
• Be carefull around freshly wind loaded features.
• In areas where deep persistent slabs may exist, avoid shallow or variable depth snowpacks and unsupported terrain features.

A few new windslabs up to sz 2 were observed initiating from steep alpine terrain on N and E aspects.

Warmer temps promoted settlement in the upper snowpack on Saturday. Windslabs 10-30cm thick are still common places along lee features (E and N aspects) in the alpine and treeline with cracking and whumpfing observed by forecasters while travelling in high treeline and alpine areas common. The windslabs are failing on weak facetted grains that formed during last weeks cold snow. Deeper in the snowpack the Dec 5th crust persists and has been making travel easier. In thinner areas, triggering the weak crystals under the crust is a real possibility so avoid steep thin and variable features in the terrain.

Winds are forecast to become more light to moderate out of the SW on Sunday with trace amounts of new snow throughout the day. Temperatures will be around -3 during the middle part of the day so slightly cooler than Saturdays temps.

More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.