Avalanche Forecast

A snowy system is headed our way Sunday afternoon to Monday. This will cause some strong alpine winds and should be a good snow producer especially for the Cascade west slopes and Mt Hood area.

Slowly decreasing northwest flow should carry a cool, slightly unstable air mass and snow showers to the Olympics and Cascades on Monday. The west slopes will continue to be favored and convergence is likely in the central Cascades. Extra snow showers should also be seen at Mt Hood on Monday.

Any avalanche problems should be found in new snow layers. Watch for signs of firmer wind transported snow that indicate wind slab. Storm slab is most likely in areas that rapidly accumulate more than several inches of new snow.

A cooling trend should help give favorable right side up new snow profiles in sheltered areas where new snow does not accumulate too rapidly or too deeply.

In most areas in the below treeline band there is not enough snow yet for avalanches. Any avalanche problems would be only in the upper part of this band.

A weakening front with a lot moisture flowing south to north along the frontal boundary moved slowly into the Northwest with a warming trend late Friday and Saturday. There a brief break by Sunday morning with a cooling trend but the next front is beginning to arrive on Sunday afternoon. Fairly light amounts of new snow were seen at Mt Hood on Saturday morning and Sunday morning. There is about 14 and 20 inches of total snow at the NWAC stations at Mt Hood Meadows and Timberline Sunday morning.

A report for Barrett Spur on the north side of the mountain was received via the NWAC Observations tab for Saturday. Wind transport was seen in the above treeline band with a low quality shear test at 50 cm down in the snowpack.

The Mt Hood Meadows pro patrol reported that at 6600 feet on Sunday morning areas of snow were scoured to a crust from Friday with only isolated pockets of very shallow wind slab.