East Slopes Central

We can all celebrate a welcome return to winter on Wednesday! Excitement aside, you should expect snow, extreme winds, and dangerous avalanche conditions at upper elevations. Avalanches could be large enough to bury you where the wind forms deep drifts. Access is still long and challenging, but if you get into the upper elevations, choose low-angle terrain. 

You should expect sensitive and large wind slabs at upper elevations. Strong winds may form slabs in unexpected areas, further down slope, or even in more sheltered locations. Shooting cracks and recent avalanches are red-flag signs of instability. To reduce your risk, make careful observations and choose conservative, low-angle terrain.

Temperatures were slightly warmer than anticipated over the past 24 hours for most of East Central. Unfortunately, this means that mid-elevations didn't pick up much new snow. An exception is farther north, where areas near Holden saw snow accumulation down to the lower elevation valleys. The zone received 0.5-1.6" of water, with higher totals in areas closer to the Cascade Crest. While we don't have direct information, we expect that upper elevations picked up 8-16" of new snow along with strong winds. 

Thankfully, this next storm is cold, and we'll start to rebuild our snowpack from scratch at most elevations. The storm will again bring strong to extreme winds with 5-10" of snow. Hopefully, we will see this new pattern continue so we can get out into the mountains and begin issuing daily hazard ratings for East Central. 

We have extremely limited snowpack data due to difficult access. We know that, in general, continuous snow cover begins around 6000 ft, and this fresh round of snow will either fall on bare ground or slick crusts. Expect worsening avalanche conditions as you climb in elevation and give yourself a wider margin of safety around large, steep slopes to account for increased uncertainty. 

We are still assessing the widespread damage from the recent flooding and windstorms. Be prepared to be turned around due to road closures, washouts, mudslides, or downed trees. When you do make it to continuous snow, watch for shallowly buried rocks, trees, and high-flowing creeks. Recognize that even small slides can have big consequences when the snowpack is so thin.

With the warm start to the 25-26 winter season, we have less snowpack information than usual to start daily forecast operations. For zones and elevation bands with less snow than needed for avalanche hazard, we will issue a forecast with No Rating. Anticipated avalanche and weather conditions will still be updated daily. NWAC will issue an avalanche danger rating for a zone when enough snow to produce avalanches has accumulated at middle and upper elevations.