Avalanche Forecast

Another dry, sunny and warm day is expected Wednesday. Freezing levels should again exceed 11,000 feet and along with light winds, causing areas of wet surface snow. Clearing overnight Tuesday should allow for the recent rain soaked upper snow layers to drain further, consolidate and allow for a thin surface crust to form. 

While wet snow avalanches should be unlikely, some shallow surface wet snow may make it possible to initiate a small loose-wet slide on some steep, mostly southerly facing slopes during the warmest part of the day. Watch for areas where surface snow is becoming wet for more than the top few inches.

From 2 to over 3 inches of rain have fallen over the Mt Hood area from Sunday night to Monday evening, following about 5-10 inches of snowfall prior to the rain. 

Few observations were received Monday or Tuesday, other than generally small wet slides, with Mt Hood Meadows patrol seeing evidence of larger wet slides at higher elevations above the forecasted terrain, near 9000 feet.

The rain should have released any recent snow received before the substantial warming arrived Sunday night. The rain has reached to the Cascade crest elevations to at least 7000 feet or higher, thus essentially resetting the snowpack. This recent rain should have eliminated any layers of concern in the upper snowpack, leaving behind wet or saturated upper snow layers.

We'll await more detailed impacts of the rain later in the week, as conditions will become more amenable to making observations.