Avalanche Forecast

Cloudy skies, cooler temperatures and light showers near the Cascade crest should not change the otherwise low avalanche danger along the east slopes of the Cascades on Thursday.

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, producing a mix of rain and wet snow along the east slopes. Since then, a benign weather pattern with mild temperatures has set in. Sites in the northeast Cascades that received the most snow during the last storm cycle, such as Washington and Harts Pass, have seen over a foot of settlement over the last week. 

Sunday through Tuesday featured sunny skies that allowed some softening of the surface snow on solar aspects during the day and perhaps allowed for small wet loose avalanches on steeper solar slopes during this period.  NWAC pro-observer Tom Curtis was at Rock Mountain east of Stevens Pass Wednesday and found no signs of instability or recent avalanches.  

While the January 15th facet/crust interface can still be identified in parts of the NE Cascades, this PWL has been stabilizing and become unlikely to trigger. As a result the Persistent Slab problem has been removed from the NE Cascade forecast.