Avalanche Forecast

A sharper shortwave will move north to south over the Northwest on Saturday. This will change flow from northwest to northeast and should cause light showers east of the crest Saturday with snow levels getting a little lower especially in the south Cascades.

But light amounts of snow are not expected to significantly change snow conditions east of the crest. If there is more than an inch or two of new snow watch for unlikely new small shallow wind slab on lee slopes similar to west of the crest.

Due to the low snowpack, especially below treeline, watch for terrain hazards such as open creeks, partially covered rocks and vegetation.

A benign weather pattern with mild temperatures was seen in the Olympics and Cascades for about the 10 days through Wednesday. This caused surface crusts and more consolidation of the snow pack east of the crest.

A weak short wave moved over a temporarily flattened upper ridge on Thursday causing showers west of the crest. Northwest flow and possible weak convergence helped maintain showers west of the crest on Friday. But little new snow is expected east of the crest Thursday and Friday.

The North Cascade Mountain Guides reported only some surface softening on solar slopes on Tuesday.

NWAC pro-observer Tom Curtis was at Rock Mountain east of Stevens Pass Wednesday and found a 10 cm thick surface crust, no signs of instability or recent avalanches and used crampons on most of the upper mountain.

While the January 15th facet/crust layers can still be identified in parts of the NE Cascades, this persistent weak layer has been stabilizing and become unlikely to trigger. As a result the Persistent Slab problem has been removed from the northeast zone.