Environment Canada has called a weather warning in many areas of the province for Thursday, including a snowfall warning in Banff and Jasper as well as wind warnings in many other areas of southwest Alberta.

The agency says both mountain parks are experiencing a long period of snowfall that could see up to 60 cm accumulate by the time the snow wraps up.

The heaviest snow is expected to fall throughout the day on Thursday, lasting well into the overnight period before it tapers off on Friday.

Environment Canada also said that most of the snowfall is localized in the area of Highway 93, as known as the Icefields Parkway.

Drivers are advised to avoid any unnecessary travel in the area until conditions improve.

Both 511 Alberta and DriveBC have posted travel advisories in the mountain parks because of adverse weather conditions affecting driving in the area including blowing and compacted snow.

Wind warnings are also in place for many regions in southwest Alberta including Cardston, Fort Macleod, Crownest Pass, Pincher Creek, Kananaskis, Canmore, Okotoks, High River, Claresholm and Waterton Lakes National Park.

CTV Calgary meteorologist Kevin Stanfield says while wind warnings in the City of Calgary are no longer in effect, gusts of 131 km/h have already been recorded at Nakiska while the Waterton Park Gate has been on the receiving end of 114 km/h gusts.

“The strongest wind in Calgary, and perhaps elsewhere, is projected to occur around mid-afternoon or 3:00 p.m.”

He adds that according to data from Environment Canada, four new high temperature records have been set because of the chinook activity.

Crownest Pass RCMP have also advised drivers to take caution on Highway 22 and Highway 3 as high winds have reached over 100 km/h in the area. Officials say that anyone driving a large light vehicle or empty semi tractor-trailer should avoid driving on those routes altogether.

Lastly, Avalanche Canada says that Highway 1 is closed in both directions between the western boundary of Yoho National Park and Golden, B.C. because of avalanche control work.

511 Alberta says the majority of Highway 93 has also been affected by avalanche work.

The closure is expected to remain in place until 2:00 p.m. on Thursday.

Grant Helgeson, a senior avalanche forecaster with Avalanche Canada says the map is a sea of red warning signs everywhere in the backcountry and in much of the province too.

"This season, we have a structurally weak snowpack throughout the Rockies. No matter where you access and travel to the Rockies from Calgary, we have a weak snowpack. It’s essentially a house of cards setup, where the snowpack has been building up over time and it’s just not that strong."

He says with the recent snow, it just makes conditions all the more dangerous and they expect to see level 3 avalanches in many areas of the backcountry. Helgeson says level 3 incidents are very strong.

"If you took a pickup truck and stuck it in an avalanche path and an avalanche came down, it would completely destroy that pickup; crumple it. These are very large and very powerful avalanches that we are expected to release naturally throughout the day today, tonight, into tomorrow and possibly Saturday."

He adds it's important for people to recognize the danger and pay attention to the warnings.

"As we get into Saturday and maybe Sunday, some of that high avalanche danger might come out but then we’re into the considerable avalanche danger rating which means that natural avalanches remain possible and human-triggered avalanches remain likely," he says. "Most avalanche incidents occur in the ‘considerable’ range."

For full information on Environment Canada’s public weather alerts, click HERE. A detailed map of all the avalanche concerns can be found HERE.

For the full weather forecast and details on how to download the Sky Watch Weather App to your mobile device, click HERE.