Lawinenlagebericht

West Slopes South

Northwest Avalanche Center
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Lawinengefahr

Tue
Hochgebirge
3 · Erheblich
Waldgrenze
3 · Erheblich
Unterhalb
1 · Gering
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Kernpunkte

A major atmospheric river event will create natural wet slides, resulting in dangerous avalanche conditions throughout the zone. It won't be a great day to hang out in the mountains, so wait this storm out, and we'll see what's left of our snowpack once the rains have stopped.

Lawinenprobleme

  • Loose Wet

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

    It's going to rain to the top of most peaks in the zone, volcanoes excluded. That means wet avalanches will occur anywhere snow coverage is sufficient. With such a meager early-season snowpack, the question becomes - where is there enough snow? 

    The answer is higher up in the hills, above roughly 6000 feet. At these elevations, information is extremely limited, but there may be enough snow that wet slides could grow large and dangerous. There may even be several rounds of avalanches as the rain continues, starting with wet loose slides, potentially followed by deeper and larger glide-style avalanches. 

    Although there's a lot of uncertainty about exactly where or how big these slides will be, we feel confident they will happen. Your risk management is relatively simple. Since it's going to rain essentially to the top of our forecast zone, it's likely a good day to stay out of the snowy mountains.

    (12/6/2025)

    Soaking rains should result in widespread natural wet avalanches wherever there is sufficient snow coverage.

    [6600ft, E, WL-N-D1-R1]

    Photo: Dallas Glass

Avalanche Discussion

There's no sugarcoating it, a hard rain's a-gonna fall. Freezing levels are expected to soar to 7500 feet by Monday evening, meaning rain is expected across all the West South mountains, except the upper volcanoes. It's been storming since Thursday in our zone, with the volcanoes receiving close to 6 inches of water while the crest has received roughly half that. We haven't seen anything like what's about to strike on Monday, however. By Tuesday morning, we will likely have more than double those water numbers. 

This atmospheric river will likely wash away most of an already struggling early-season snowpack. There currently isn't enough snow down low for us to be concerned about avalanche danger. As you ascend in elevation, it gets progressively more winterlike, but the snowpack is not particularly deep. Make no mistake: if this storm were occurring mid-winter or we had a cold, layered snowpack on the ground, we'd be forecasting High avalanche danger and issuing avalanche warnings. It's that big and dangerous a storm.  And there are some real concerns about whether we'll actually reach that threshold on the volcanoes during this event. The mindset behind the considerable rating is that the potential for widespread D2 natural avalanches is lower because we don't have much existing snow to work with. But just in case we're wrong, you probably want to stay out of snowy areas of the mountains on Monday. It won't be very pleasant out anyway, so it shouldn't be too hard to convince yourself to stay home and get all your deferred errands done so you can go out and play when the weather gets snowier.

With the warm start to the 25-26 winter season, we have less snowpack information than usual to start daily forecast operations. For zones and elevation bands with less snow than needed for avalanche hazard, we will issue a forecast with No Rating. Anticipated avalanche and weather conditions will still be updated daily. NWAC will issue an avalanche danger rating for a zone when enough snow to produce avalanches has accumulated at middle and upper elevations.

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