Mt Hood

Abundant recent snow and strong shifting winds will maintain dangerous avalanche conditions Tuesday. Wind slabs formed over the past few days will be slow to settle. You can trigger wind slabs on steep open slopes on a variety of aspects as strong winds have occurred from multiple directions. Choose conservative, simple routes with minimal exposure to avalanche terrain.

Another round of fresh snow and strong NE winds Monday continued to build fresh wind slabs on non-typical aspects. No backcountry observations were received Monday. Control reports will not tell the story for backcountry terrain where avalanches would be much larger and more dangerous than those seen in the ski areas Monday.

Storm slab avalanches were very sensitive to skier triggering on Sunday morning during Mt. Hood Meadows avalanche control. The new avalanches were shallow in depth but broke widely across the terrain. Natural shallow slab avalanches were also observed on a variety of aspects. 

Prior to Sunday's new snow, professionals digging in the snow and looking for the 2/8 weak snow/crust combination in the Mt. Hood Meadows area were finding it roughly 4 feet down on N-E aspects and in a rather narrow elevation band around 5300’-6000'.  While this is very useful and specific information, we can't extrapolate this to the larger Mt. Hood area to fine-tune the suspect aspects. 

With Mt. Hood in the bulls-eye of the storm track, the avalanche danger will largely be driven by new snow concerns over the next few days. However, continue to think about the lingering deep slab potential when choosing terrain.  

With all the low-density snow piling up the risk of a Tree well/Snow immersion and Suffocation accident continues. Unfortunately, there was a tragic tree well/SIS fatality at the Timberline ski area on Saturday. 

February 24th, 2019

The Status Quo

As we look at the avalanche conditions the phrase “Status Quo” keeps coming to mind. We use this term in the avalanche industry to note periods of no substantial changes, where observations continue to support the current avalanche danger, and our terrain use doesn’t appreciably change. We’ll look at recent avalanche conditions with this lens.

Avalanches

Following several large winter storms just prior to Valentine's Day, we saw very active avalanche conditions. With a few notable exceptions, most of the avalanche activity occurred more than a week ago. This lack of activity has allowed us to gain some confidence with the persistent weak layer buried on February 8th. You can see this reflected in the progression in the likelihood of persistent slab avalanches from “Likely,” to “Possible,” to “Unlikely.” The timing of this progression has been different depending on the zone.

The recent exceptions were two very large avalanches in the Crystal Mountain area on February 20th. During avalanche mitigation work, Crystal Mountain Ski Patrol triggered a slide on a SE aspect at 6300 ft in a less often skied portion of their ski area. On the same day, a skier triggered a persistent slab on a W aspect at 6300 ft in the backcountry adjacent to the ski area. Both were 3-4 ft deep. It’s hard to ignore these two obvious signs of instability.

Feb 20, 2019: SE 6300’: SS-AE-D3-R3-O. Photo: Crystal Mt Ski Patrol

Snowpack

Snow profiles and snowpack tests have been coming in from nearly every region. This is great! It helps us put together a more complete picture of the snowpack structure. Observers continue to report a layer of facets 2-5 feet below the snow surface and just above a crust. These facets are showing signs of rounding (gaining strength). In the past week, snowpack tests have become more variable. Some tests are indicating triggering an avalanche and crack propagation (necessary for a slab avalanche) are becoming less likely. That said, we are still seeing other tests that indicate that triggering deep persistent slabs remains a possibility. More tracking of this trend is needed to concretely illustrate the trend.

The Feb 8 facet layer is 3-5ft deep in the Snoqualmie Pass area.  Photo: Susie Glass

Weather

Our recent weather systems have not been big water producers, especially by Cascade standards. However, the colder than normal temperatures have produced light, low-density snowfall. Wind transported snow have been the main driver of slab avalanches in the new snow. These storms have been large enough to keep the avalanche danger elevated, but not enough for major spikes in danger.

Recent low-density snow drifted by the wind to form fresh slabs Photo: Dallas Glass

Looking Ahead

At this point avalanches on persistent weak layers can’t be fully ruled out on specific aspects or elevations in most zones. Your chances of triggering an avalanche on a persistent weak layer are lower than they were on February 13th, but the change from day-to-day will remain slow and incremental. As a result, you’ve seen slow changes in the avalanche danger in most zones. Due to the serious consequences and the uncertainty that these avalanches present, we will continue to operate with a “Status Quo” mindset. Don’t let this lack of change lull you to sleep.

When will the conditions change? Not tomorrow, but possibly within the next week or two. Keep checking the forecast. Make sure to read the Snow and Avalanche Discussion and the Avalanche Problem text so you can stay up to date with any changes as they arise.