Avalanche Forecast

A deep low pressure system should move over about Cape Flattery and across south Vancouver Island Sunday morning and afternoon. This should bring stormy weather and heavy snow to the Olympics Sunday. This is a little faster than previously expected. A vigorous, strong front should rapidly cross the area and cause rapidly shifting winds Sunday.

The main avalanche problem Sunday should be increasing strong winds and increasing moderate to heavy snow rapidly transporting recent or new snow and building new wind slab on lee slopes. This is very likely to be northwest to southeast slopes. New storm slab should also be likely where there is rapidly accumulating new snowfall.

The pattern makes for a tricky forecast Sunday. Dangerous avalanche conditions are expected to develop Sunday afternoon. Back country travel is not recommended in the near and above treeline by Sunday afternoon.

Weather and Snowpack

The nonstop active weather pattern continues to push a storm system through the PNW almost every day or two with fluctuating but generally moderate snow levels.

The last storm impacted the area Wednesday through Thursday with a warming trend that peaked Wednesday night and very strong winds. About 10 inches of new snow was reported by the Hurricane ranger for the 4 days ending on Saturday morning.

A front on Saturday is causing west-southwest winds and there should be a couple inches of new snow at Hurricane by Sunday morning.  

The mid and lower snow pack in the Olympics should generally be a stable mix of crusts and layers of moist and rounded snow crystals.

Recent Observations

NWAC pro-observer Matt Schondwald toured around the Hurricane Ridge area Friday. He found up to 20 cm of dense 1 F or P snow above the latest rain crust. Thin wind slab was generally not reactive except in isolated areas on N-NW lee aspects near treeline. Although cornices were large, they were generally firm and not sensitive. Matt observed evidence of a widespread natural cycle involving shallow slabs on northerly lee aspects that likely occurred Wednesday night during warming and a transition to rain. Windward slopes that had melted out a few weeks earlier had packed on a firm and in places icy thin cover. Overall Matt noted few current avalanche problems in the Hurricane Ridge area Friday.   

Hurricane Weather Station

Internet communications to the station have been disrupted at the NWAC office. We have identified the problem but unfortunately our hardware will not be repaired until early next week. We apologize for the outage and are working to get the station back up ASAP.