Dashboard Regions Weather Stations Radar Alerts Glossary
Contact About
Log In

Register for an account and never miss a forecast again!

Register

Avalanche Forecast

Archived

Jan 21st, 2020–Jan 22nd, 2020

Alpine
Natural avalanches possible, human triggered probable.
Treeline
Natural avalanches possible, human triggered probable.
Below Treeline
Natural avalanches possible, human triggered probable.
Alpine
Natural and human triggered avalanches likely.
Treeline
Natural and human triggered avalanches likely.
Below Treeline
Natural avalanches possible, human triggered probable.

Regions

.

Choose conservative routes with plenty of options to navigate avalanche slopes and adapt to dynamic weather conditions Wednesday. Steer around any open slope greater than 35 degrees where you could trigger an avalanche. With snow levels near 3000 ft during much of this storm, expect instability to persist longer and avalanches to be larger at higher elevations.

Discussion

Weather forecasts indicate that this storm should pack quite the punch and aims the highest water amounts at the West Central zone Tuesday night. We expect around 1" of snow water equivalent to fall overnight in northern parts of the forecast zone by Wednesday morning (with lower amounts south of the Mountain Loop) and lighter snow showers becoming steadier snowfall by Wednesday afternoon adding 0.25-0.5" of snow water during the day. Although we probably didn’t get to considerable avalanche danger on Tuesday below and near treeline, with the high snowfall rates forecast, we should have plenty of snow to create new storm slabs. Rapidly accumulating snow needs time to settle, so it will be prudent to seek lower angle slopes.

Looking forward another day, very dangerous avalanche conditions should develop as snow intensifies and then changes to rain Wednesday night and we expect that danger will be present into the day on Thursday.

Snowpack Discussion

New Regional Synopsis coming soon. We update the Regional Synopsis every Thursday at 6 pm.

Problems

Storm Slabs

Storm Slab avalanches are the release of a cohesive layer (a slab) of new snow that breaks within new snow or on the old snow surface. Storm-slabs typically last between a few hours and few days (following snowfall). Storm-slabs that form over a persistent weak layer (surface hoar, depth hoar, or near-surface facets) may be termed Persistent Slabs or may develop into Persistent Slabs.