East Slopes North

A week of fairly benign weather has led to generally safe avalanche conditions within the zone. That doesn't mean that hazard has been entirely eliminated. Uncertainty due to a lack of recent observations means you should make travel plans with plenty of options to adjust based on your assessments. 

Overall, the potential for consequential avalanches has decreased across the zone. That doesn't mean that avalanche activity will be non-existent. Here are a few things to keep in mind on Thursday:

• There is low-density snow available for transport, and winds should start to increase slowly on Thursday. New shallow wind slabs could start forming on leeward slopes at upper elevations.
• In isolated locations, you might find a few older wind slabs from earlier this week. They should be stubborn to unreactive. 
• An excellent sliding surface exists below the new snow at mid to upper elevations. Loose avalanches could run far on the Early February Crust. Most of these should be dry, but...
• A few could be wet. Especially further east in the zone where more sunshine is expected on Thursday. The catch is that less dry snow is available where the most sunshine is anticipated. 
• Uncertainty surrounds our previous persistent weak layers - the early January facets and the December facet/crust. We currently believe these layers were partially flushed and are now sufficiently bridged by the Early February Crust. Consider keeping a wide buffer of terrain between your group and steep, unsupported features until more information can be gathered.

Observations within the East North zone are extremely limited after our recent atmospheric river event (1/27-2/1).  We do know that this rain event resulted in a widespread wet avalanche cycle within the zone. Many slides were suspected of failing on old, weak layers in the snowpack. Since then, snow has slowly been accumulating at mid to upper elevations. We suspect nearly a foot of snow has fallen over a crust at upper elevations. A mixture of wind-press, well-settled powder, and various crusts have been reported. We'll need a few good storms at lower elevations to reach the threshold for consequential avalanches.