Avalanche forecast

East Slopes Central

Northwest Avalanche Center
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Avalanche danger

Tue
Alpine
3 · Considerable
Treeline
3 · Considerable
Below
3 · Considerable
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Highlights

Particularly near the Cascade Crest, avalanche hazard will spike most likely before sunrise as rain falls at all elevations, destabilizing recently fallen snow. You'll be hard-pressed to find snow that isn't at least somewhat wet and sticky further east, either, thanks to warm temperatures. Be careful of your terrain selection, as being caught and carried in even a small wet snow avalanche could carry you into hazards downslope.

Avalanche problems

  • Loose Wet

    • Alpine
    • Treeline
    • Below treeline
    Likelihood
    Likely
    Size
    1–2

    Freezing levels will suddenly jump sometime in the late night/very early morning hours, and precipitation will fall as rain at all elevations. The exact timing is hard to pin down due to a weak easterly wind pattern pushing back on this storm system. Areas near the Cascade Crest, namely the Salmon La Sac, will bear the brunt of this onslaught, while areas further east will only get a drizzle. Most precipitation for the next 24 hours will fall overnight, so peak instability should be overnight or early in the morning, but unstable snow will continue throughout the day on Monday.

    Stepping deeply through wet, heavy snow is your first simple clue that the snowpack is destabilized. The next action you can take is to find a very steep but small test slope to push on and see if the snow slides on its own. If so, you should avoid consequential avalanche terrain where you could be taken for a long ride or thrown into terrain traps below. Take note if you're still getting heavily rained on once the sun comes up, as this means the timing of peak instability has been delayed more than forecasted, and you'll want to avoid all avalanche terrain and runouts where natural avalanches could run. Either way, don't linger under sagging cornices or other terrain features where snow could suddenly fall down from.

    It's unlikely that enough rain will fall for liquid water to penetrate all the way down to crusts deeper in the snowpack, but if it does, there becomes some chance of a large and deadly wet slab avalanche. 

    (1/31/2026)

    Example of an intentionally triggered wet loose avalanche on a northeast aspect at 6300 ft in the Teanaway.

    Photo: Payton Schiff

Avalanche Discussion

Hopefully you got your whoops and hollers out over the weekend, because the snowpack is about to change drastically from deep, dry powder to deep, wet mush. This is at least the case for the western side of the zone, which continues to receive the most precipitation, as is typical. Hazard is lower further to the east, where the snowpack will largely be spared from rain. Unfortunately, it won't be spared from warm temperatures, however.

We have been tracking weak faceted snow and buried surface hoar near a crust that formed in early February. Prior to this significant storm, we hadn't seen any avalanches on these layers since March 2nd, and all of those avalanches were only in wind loaded terrain. As time went on, the buried surface hoar became harder to find, but the facets did not. These layers are now buried 4-5 ft deep in the Salmon La Sac, and at a similar depth in wind loaded terrain in the Wenatchees. No clear reports came in during or immediately after the storm of them being overloaded by new snow and instability reinvigorating. A public observer traveling in the Salmon La Sac on Friday reported no snowpack test results on these layers, although they did get a propagating result within the new storm snow. An NWAC Forecaster traveling in the same area on Saturday viewed a large natural avalanche across the drainage that may or may not have failed on buried weak layers. Then, on Sunday, March 15th, Mission Ridge Pro Patrol used large explosives to trigger very large avalanches that failed on weak snow above the 2/7 crust. This tells us that although unlikely, buried weak layers are still a player in the avalanche game, given a big enough trigger.

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