Large avalanches are unlikely. Small, human-triggered wet snow avalanches are possible where you find loose surface snow. Long sliding falls can be dangerous where you find exposed icy bed surfaces. Carefully assess your ability to prevent and stop a sliding fall in steep terrain.
Wet loose sluff avalanches are possible to initiate under your skis. While typically not large enough to bury a person, these heavy sluffs can easily knock you off your feet and cause an unwanted fall in high consequence terrain. Consider what is in your fall line, especially any crevasses, moats around rocks and cliff bands.
The snowpack is generally stable, and triggering a large avalanche is unlikely. It has been 5 days since the last significant snowfall and since then warm temperatures, rain and even bright sun have worked to reduce concerns for any remaining surface slabs.
Instabilities deeper in the snowpack, creating a large avalanche, remain a low probability/high consequence event that deserves some consideration given yesterday’s ½ inch of rain and very warm temperatures. Precipitation ending last night, and falling temperatures, suggest the timing for increased probability of a larger slide has passed. In general, our snowpack has weathered similar rain events in recent weeks without results deeper than surface snow.
Dangerous long sliding falls in steep terrain may be the greatest hazard today where rain has melted away soft surface snow leaving a hard slippery bed surface. Be mindful of your ability to prevent a fall where falls have consequences, knowing that stopping may be impossible.
Significant melting has occurred over the last few days, bringing springtime objective hazards to the forefront. If you are in the mountains today be watching for:
Your avalanche, snowpack, or weather observations are extremely valuable to the forecasters at MWAC. Help create a more accurate avalanche forecast by submitting your observations.
