Avalanche Forecast

Fair - Due to the number of field observations

Friday: Cloudy with sunny breaks. The freezing level is between 2500-3000 m. Ridge winds are light to moderate from the west. Saturday: Cloudy with possible light snow. The freezing level lowers to around 1500 m. Winds are generally light from the W-NW. Sunday: Mainly cloudy with light snow. The freezing level is around 1200-1500 m.

Observations have been essentially non-existent in recent days. This likely speaks more to a lack of observers rather than actual conditions. I'm confident recent storm loading has produced large storm slab avalanches at higher elevations, while loose wet or wet slab avalanche activity occurred at lower elevations where rain fell.

The rain line during recent heavy precipitation generally hovered around 1700m, although there were periods where rain fell into the alpine. Above that elevation, heavy accumulations of moist, dense snow have been pushed by strong southwest winds into much deeper deposits on the lee side of ridgecrests and terrain breaks. This recent storm snow overlies a hard crust, which may have overlying surface hoar that was buried late January. The mid-December crust/facet/surface hoar weakness may be persisting in the mid to lower snowpack at higher elevations.