Southeast Mountains

The big picture view shows generally safe avalanche conditions due to fairly dry weather and the shallow to non-exestent snowpack. When traveling at upper elevations watch for isolated areas of unstable snow on wind-loaded terrain features. 

In the Southeast Mountains, there are few places to find enough of a snowpack to create an avalanche concern. These isolated locations would also be above treeline wind-loaded terrain. This portion of our forecast area received less snow during the last storm, and in the big picture, this area has seen little change from the generally safe avalanche conditions over the last couple of weeks of fairly dry weather.

billy barr lives in Gothic and has been recording snow since 1974. Here is a quick note he had on current conditions.

"The driest September thru November snowfall amount was the winter of 1976-77 with 81 cm (32") for that three-month period. So far this year there has been 56 cm (22") with nothing forecast for the remainder of the month. --Note though that in 1976-77 there was 1.68" of water and this year 2.77" so far as the snowfall is much denser, so that makes this a bit less dismal, except that almost all this year's snowfall has melted away."

The snow has melted away at lower elevations, but there is still snow at upper elevations. At least we have received more water when compared to the worst winter in his records. This shows one example of where we are at with current conditions for the Southeast Mountain forecast.