Avalanche forecast

East Slopes Central

Northwest Avalanche Center
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Avalanche danger

Thu
Alpine
2 · Moderate
Treeline
2 · Moderate
Below
No rating
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Highlights

Another day, another extremely warm, wet storm. Don’t linger beneath steep rocks covered with snow, as they could unexpectedly shed chunks of snow. At higher elevations, you could trigger small loose avalanches as rain falls on dry snow. Watch for rollerballs as a sign to move to lower-angle slopes.

Avalanche problems

  • Loose Wet

    • Alpine
    • Treeline
    • Below treeline
    Likelihood
    Possible
    Size
    1–1.5

    The brief period of cooling is over, and we can expect a return to wet avalanches.  There are two types of avalanches to watch out for, each with different management strategies. The copious amount of liquid water in our snowpack can cause large slabs of snow to shed off steep rocks and cliffs. These are unpredictable, so be careful not to stop or linger beneath them.

    If you're brave enough to weather the storm and put in the long approach, you can reach more continuous snow at upper elevations. Up in this terrain, wet loose avalanches should also be on your radar. The cooling temperatures brought 6-7 inches of dry snow to elevations above 5500ft. Unfortunately, that fresh powder is going to get rained on tomorrow. You could trigger small wet loose avalanches that run on the underlying crust. But even small avalanches can have high consequences by carrying you into exposed obstacles in our low-tide snow environment. So monitor the snow as you travel. Move to lower-angle slopes if you start to see lots of pinwheels or are sinking into heavy, wet snow.

    (3/27/2025)

    An example of a small wet avalanche that ran on smooth ground. These will be overhead hazards to avoid on Tuesday. 

    Photo: Katie Warren

Avalanche Discussion

The first atmospheric river (AR) brought 1-3" of water to most of the East Central Zone, with even higher amounts closer to the Cascade Crest. We enjoyed a brief break on Tues, but the party isn't over. Expect an even warmer, wetter, windier, and more prolonged AR event beginning Tuesday night and lasting through Thursday morning. There is significantly more water and recent snow in areas closer to the Cascade Crest, so make sure to monitor the snow as you travel. The deeper the snowpack and the more recent the snow, the larger the avalanches.A driving tour through Blewett Pass and Icicle River provided some insight into how our snowpack fared during the first AR event. Lower elevations are now mostly bare ground, but based on our observations, the middle elevations above 5500ft retained more robust snowpack. Upper elevations, down to about 4500ft, even picked up some dry snow. An NWAC forecaster near Mission Ridge noted 4 inches of dry snow atop a thick layer of refrozen melt forms at upper elevations. However, the overall snowpack remains quite thin in the Wenatchee Mountains, with depths greater than 12 inches only in deeply wind-drifted locations.Because lower elevations still lack sufficient snow, we are not issuing a hazard rating. As you move higher, however, the snowpack approaches seasonal norms—so you should expect both avalanche size and likelihood to increase.

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.

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