Avalanche Forecast

An amplifying upper ridge over the US and BC coastal waters will dominate the weather the next few days. This will cause sunny, warmer weather in the Olympics and Cascades Sunday and early next week.

The main problem to watch for west of the crest should be possible loose wet avalanches. Watch for initial rollerballs or surface wet snow deeper than few inches. While this is expected mainly on solar slopes midday watch for it on other aspects as well. Overnight cooling and surface refreezing will limit this problem on non-solar slopes and during the night and morning hours.

As a result of the overall low snowpack, especially below treeline, watch for terrain hazards such as open creeks, partially covered rocks and vegetation.

Warm and wet southwest flow directed a series of fronts across the Northwest from about February 5th-10th. This caused about 5-14 inches of water west of the crest falling mostly as rain with the most at Mt Baker. This led to more melt at lower elevations, making many slopes below treeline nearly snow free, regardless of aspect.   

But about 5-12 inches of heavy snow accumulated  near and above treeline at the tail end of the storms based on weather station data and reports. Mild temperatures and a little rain has been seen the past few days and today. 

NWAC pro-observers west of the crest indicate some small loose wet avalanches early last week. A report via the NWAC Observations page for Tuesday from Paradise also indicated some loose wet avalanches but pit tests gave mostly hard or no results.

Less if any avalanches were reported later in the week.

The mid and lower snowpack west of the crest should consist of layers of stable consolidated rounded grains or melt forms and crusts from multiple warm periods this winter.