Lawinenlagebericht

West Slopes South

Northwest Avalanche Center
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Lawinengefahr

Sun
Hochgebirge
3 · Erheblich
Waldgrenze
3 · Erheblich
Unterhalb
3 · Erheblich
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Kernpunkte

A potent winter storm will create dangerous avalanche conditions on Saturday due to snowfall and strong winds. Avoid all slopes over 35 degrees where the likelihood of triggering a slide is higher. Avalanches could fail naturally, break in surprising ways, or run far distances on an underlying crust.

Lawinenprobleme

  • Storm Slabs

    • Hochgebirge
    • Waldgrenze
    • Unterhalb der Waldgrenze
    Wahrscheinlichkeit
    Likely
    Größe
    1–2

    This will be the strongest storm of the week, delivering several rounds of precipitation and strong winds. You'll need to manage new snow problems wherever you travel on Saturday, but avalanches should be easier to trigger on slopes over 35 degrees. Slabs will be larger as you ascend in elevation or wind-loaded terrain, which could be on any aspect due to a mid-storm wind direction shift. Using uptrack tests, hand pits, or small test slopes can indicate how the new snow is setting up. But to assess the actual hazard, you'll likely need to dig down to the AR crust to get a feel for potential failure points. Depending on your elevation or location, this could be 6 inches to a couple feet below the surface. Keep it simple - avoid slopes over 35 degrees where avalanches are more likely until this storm has passed.

    (3/11/2025)

    One of several human, remote, and natural slab avalanches from the Crystal backcountry earlier this week. Similar, but potentially deeper, avalanches could occur this weekend.

    Photo: Peter Sundberg

Avalanche Discussion

After a relative lull in the weather on Friday, our stormy week is set to continue this weekend, resulting in increased avalanche danger. The southern half of our zone will be hit particularly hard and potentially for longer. So, if you're planning on traveling to Mount Adams or Mount St. Helens, you may want to glance at the Hood forecast. These areas may reach High avalanche danger on Saturday afternoon due to extreme winds, heavy precipitation, and warming temperatures. 

Elsewhere in the zone, it should be plenty stormy as snow stacks up and strong winds pepper the mountains most of the day, switching directions in the morning hours. You could list many avalanche problems for tomorrow, but the simple breakdown is that you'll need to manage all of this week's new snow. We've had a slow trickle of reported avalanches this week, including storm slab, wind slab, dry loose, wet loose, and cornice. All of them have been confined to this week's storm snow. We now have several interfaces with variable depth over a crust. The wind has created unstable drifts on both sides of ridgelines. In isolated locations, weak snow could exist near the bottom of this week's storm snow, which could be several feet deep when Saturday rolls around. This means avalanches could break deeply or in surprising ways. 

Combined all that with Saturday's storm being the strongest of the week, it's shaping up to be a spicy day in the mountains, so you should treat it as such. Dial your terrain selection back, don't be shocked to see natural avalanche activity during or shortly after periods of intense precipitation or wind, and make good assessments before committing to a slope. If there is a lengthy duration of sunshine, be leery of wet avalanches in the new snow.

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