East Slopes South

At lower elevations, you may encounter snow that is still wet and unsupportable. If you do, avoid spending time on steep slopes where there remains some potential to trigger a small wet snow avalanche. If you're near the Cascade Crest and see the wind blowing new snow around, keep an eye out for small slabs developing on downwind slopes.

Tuesday is expected to be noticeably colder and cloudier zone wide, but you might see the sun pop out in the afternoon. It still won't be cold per se, but a bit of snowfall combined with increasing wind speeds could make most of the day feel rather wintery. We don't expect wet snow problems to be an issue. However, there could be some lingering warmth and water within the snowpack after such a long and extensive warm-up. Look out for signs of wet snow and give sagging cornices at middle elevations a wide berth.

There is some potential for encountering small wind slab development near the Crest at upper elevations on all aspects if some spillover from the west side happens. Blowing snow will indicate wind transport onto downwind terrain just below ridgelines and other exposed terrain features. Shooting cracks and recent slab avalanches are red flags.

An NWAC Forecaster visited Ahtanum Meadows on Saturday to gather some information for this hard to reach and data poor zone. She found a varied but overall stable snowpack. Travel conditions were mostly less than ideal, but some soft and dry surface snow could still be found at upper elevations on shaded aspects. This is one piece of data in a large chunk of terrain for which this forecast is for. If you travel to other parts of the zone, you'll have to do your own snowpack assessments to garner whether conditions are similar. 

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