Avalanche forecast

East Slopes Central

Northwest Avalanche Center
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Avalanche danger

Mon
Alpine
4 · High
Treeline
4 · High
Below
3 · Considerable
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Highlights

Very dangerous avalanche conditions will develop throughout the day as rain and wet snow overload a dry snowpack. Don’t try to outsmart these natural wet avalanches. Give the mountains space to do their thing by staying away from avalanche terrain.

Avalanche problems

  • Wet Slabs

    • Alpine
    • Treeline
    • Below treeline
    Likelihood
    Very Likely
    Size
    1.5–2.5

    Sunday’s avalanche issues don’t fit neatly into a box. You could encounter different problems depending on the time of day, elevation, and location within the zone. While this blend of dry to wet, and loose to slab avalanche concerns seems complex, the fundamentals of the situation are very straightforward. 

    The snowpack on the ground is often dry and layered above about 5000ft. Wet heavy snow should turn to rain by the end of the day at all but the highest elevations in the zone. This combination isn’t likely to be a good thing for stability. You might encounter wet slabs, wet loose slides, and cornice collapses as conditions warm. These wet issues are hard to assess. The best thing you can do is avoid areas where avalanches start, run, and stop. 

    At lower elevations, the snowpack is pretty beat up. Down there most of the hazard comes from above. Large wet slides could impact runouts down in the forest. Limit any time you spend in opening below large alpine slopes. 

    (12/29/2024)

    Example A large natural wet avalanche from the west face of Teanaway Mt. earlier this winter.

    Photo: Rob Pollard

Avalanche Discussion

In normal East Central fashion much more water is expected to fall in areas like Salmon la Sac and Holden, than in the Wenatchee Mts. That makes the avalanche forecast feel more like a slam dunk in those areas. Even though locations further east are getting much less water, don’t write them off. It might not take as much rain to cause the shallow and variable snowpacks to fail. Given the varying amounts of water, timing of the warm-up, and when exactly it changes from snow to rain, different parts of the zone could become very dangerous while others feel much less scary. 

In general, avalanches should stay above the last atmospheric river (AR) crust. Further west, this may be several feet down. Near Mission Ridge this layer might not be as well defined. Fortunately, this isn’t exactly a day you’ll need to dig a snowpit to try and figure it out. Rain on dry snow is a simple red flag. 

Aside from the avalanche danger, it’s going to be warm, wet, and stormy. Very strong and gusty winds and periods of heavy precipitation won’t make it easy to navigate the hazard. Just one more reason to keep it reigned in and simple. 

Regions covered