K-Country specialists offer hours, eyes, well-educated guesses to help keep you alive through avalanche season
Public safety specialists in Kananaskis Country keep constant watch of snow conditions.
It's a daily ritual in the winter months for avalanche forecasters in Canmore to meet in the mornings and look at data collected from four real-time weather stations in Kananaskis Country.
Jeremy Mackenzie, a public safety specialist, says the more information he has, the better he can forecast avalanche activity.
"We have a region that we take care of and every day, we want to analyze what's going on with the snow, what happened with the snowfall and wind overnight, what's happening with the temperatures," he said.
"We're checking for things like what are the bonds between the new layers, and then that leads into our hazard assessment."
Mackenzie says that information is made public through avalanche.ca.
In addition to the data transmitted from the weather stations, the team will make trips into Kananaskis Country to look at the snow and for any avalanche activity.
Avalanche Canada recently upgraded its website with a flexible forecasting model that allows Mackenzie and the team to provide more accurate conditions within the mountain park.
"If we see something today that's different in the Kananaskis Valley versus the Spray Valley, say Highway 40 versus the Smith Dorian Highway, then we can now split that out and communicate that better," Mackenzie said.
"So we're actually going to be able to create different sub-regions within our Kananaskis region bulletin."
Mackenzie says the snowpack is sitting at 80 centimetres now and that's about average.
He says in early November, the snow was wet and sticky and that helped it bond to the ground, but then there were weeks of drought that created another set of problems.
A crust formed on the top layer of snowpack that developed a surface hoar layer.
"It's like a dew on the top of the snowpack," he said.
"Those create problems, so this most recent snow did fall on that layer and it'll just remain to be seen as to what that does for the rest of the winter."
The end of November brings with it -30 C temperatures in the mountain parks and that again impacts the top layer of snow.
"There's a property where snow crystals actually deteriorate in strength in the cold," Mackenzie said.
"They're actually losing water vapour to the sky because of the cold temperatures and we get a crystal that's more sugary in nature, which is called a facet, and facets create problems into January, February, March, if that's the layer on the base of the snowpack."
Public safety specialists say it's important to research a trip into the backcountry well before the outing to learn as much about the snowpack and conditions as possible.
Mackenzie says that will help skiers, boarders and snowshoers to make the right decisions for their abilities.
"You have to really be paying attention all the way through the beginning of the season and throughout the snowpack year," he said.
"We have had several years of relatively stable snow and we don't know what's going to come this year, so we definitely want users to be heads-up on that and be expecting that they may need to change their behaviour. Some of the bigger ski lines and the bigger features, you may need to wait longer or avoid them entirely for the whole year."
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
More than 115 cases of eye damage reported in Ontario after solar eclipse
More than 115 people who viewed the solar eclipse in Ontario earlier this month experienced eye damage after the event, according to eye doctors in the province.
Last letters of pioneering climber who died on Everest reveal dark side of mountaineering
George Mallory is renowned for being one of the first British mountaineers to attempt to scale the dizzying heights of Mount Everest during the 1920s. Nearly a century later, newly digitized letters shed light on Mallory’s hopes and fears about ascending Everest.
Toxic testing standoff: Family leaves house over air quality
A Sherwood Park family says their new house is uninhabitable. The McNaughton's say they were forced to leave the house after living there for only a week because contaminants inside made it difficult to breathe.
An emergency slide falls off a Delta Air Lines plane, forcing pilots to return to JFK in New York
An emergency slide fell off a Delta Air Lines jetliner shortly after takeoff Friday from New York, and pilots who felt a vibration in the plane circled back to land safely at JFK Airport.
B.C. seeks ban on public drug use, dialing back decriminalization
The B.C. NDP has asked the federal government to recriminalize public drug use, marking a major shift in the province's approach to addressing the deadly overdose crisis.
Sophie Gregoire Trudeau on navigating post-political life, co-parenting and freedom
Sophie Gregoire Trudeau says there is 'still so much love' between her and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as they navigate their post-separation relationship co-parenting their three children.
Decoy bear used to catch man who illegally killed a grizzly, B.C. conservation officers say
A man has been handed a lengthy hunting ban and fined thousands of dollars for illegally killing a grizzly bear, B.C. conservation officers say.
'I was scared': Ontario man's car repossessed after missing two repair loan payments
An Ontario man who took out a loan to pay for auto repairs said his car was repossessed after he missed two payments.
First court appearance for boy and girl charged in death of Halifax 16-year-old
A girl and a boy, both 14 years old, made their first appearance today in a Halifax courtroom, where they each face a second-degree murder charge in the stabbing death of a 16-year-old high school student.