Avalanche Forecast
Avalanche Bulletin - Glacier National Park
Previous winds have created pockets of wind slab in the Alpine and at treeline. Keep a heads up as you transition into these areas.
Avalanche Problem 1: Storm Slabs
What Elevation?
Which Slopes?
Chances of Avalanches?
Expected Size?
Travel and Terrain Advice
- If triggered the storm slabs may step down to deeper layers resulting in large avalanches.
- Use caution in lee areas in the alpine and treeline. Storm snow is forming reactive slabs.
Avalanche Problem 2: Persistent Slabs
What Elevation?
Which Slopes?
Chances of Avalanches?
Expected Size?
These slabs will be most susceptible to triggering in shallow areas. This type of instability will linger for a while yet. The significant storms seen recently have overloaded these layers, priming slopes to fail only awaiting a trigger.
Travel and Terrain Advice
- Be aware of the potential for large avalanches due to the presence of buried surface hoar.
- Avoid thin, rocky or unsupported slopes.
Avalanche Summary
Natural avalanche activity tapered slightly yesterday. On Thursday a hand-full of natural avalanches were observed to size 3 in the highway corridor, most were in steep un-ridable North facing terrain. Also size 2.5 was reported in Connaught drainage in the Cheops North 1 slide path that ran to the valley bottom, nearly hitting the skin track.
Snowpack Summary
Storm snow remains unsettled with up to 50cm of ski penetration. Ongoing southerly winds have created reactive pockets of wind slab in exposed areas. On solar aspects, a well developed crust is buried 40cm. Persistent weak layers from January and December are now buried 150-200cm.
Weather Forecast
A weak low pressure system brings scattered flurries to our region today. We could see 5-10cms of accumulation. Temperatures will remain cool with an alpine high of -13.0 and light ridgetop winds occasionally gusting to 35km/h. On Sunday, cold arctic air moves into our region with temperatures dropping into the minus 20s.
Avalanche Forecasts in your Inbox
Avalanche Canada has switched to an RSS feed for its daily forecasts. This is a much more flexible method that allows automatic delivery to your email inbox, or to an RSS reader of your choice.
What are RSS feeds?
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a popular standardized file format allowing up-to-date delivery of web-based content. RSS feeds enable you to receive content updates from websites, delivered to your email through an RSS aggregator (such as blogtrottr.com) or viewed through applications called RSS readers (such as feedly.com).
Set up an RSS feed for your email:
Select a RSS aggregator
- Avalanche Bulletin - Glacier National Park URL:
http://www.avalanche.ca/api/forecasts/glacier.rss - Copy the url and paste it into the appropriate field of your RSS aggregator.
- Fill in your email address.
- Voila! Watch the Avalanche Canada forecast roll into your inbox.
Forecast Disclaimer
Avalanche Canada's Public Avalanche Bulletin, and other information and services provided by Avalanche Canada, are intended for personal and recreational purposes only.
**THIS INFORMATION IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND IN NO EVENT SHALL THE PROVIDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, DAMAGES RESULTING FROM DISCOMFORT, INJURY, OR DEATH, CLAIMS BY THIRD PARTIES OR FOR OTHER SIMILAR COSTS, OR ANY SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, ARISING OUT OF THE USE OF THE INFORMATION.**
The user acknowledges that it is impossible to accurately predict natural events such as avalanches in every instance, and uses the data in this bulletin with this always foremost in mind. The accuracy or reliability of the data is not guaranteed or warranted in any way and the Providers disclaim liability of any kind whatsoever, including, without limitation, liability for quality, performance, merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose arising out of the use, or inability to use the data.
Natural and skier triggered avalanches are still resulting from this reactive storm slab problem. Loading from moderate to strong southerly winds has increased the likelihood storm slabs being triggered and propagating, especially in exposed areas.