Avalanche forecast

West Slopes South

Northwest Avalanche Center
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Avalanche danger

Wed
Alpine
4 · High
Treeline
4 · High
Below
3 · Considerable
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Highlights

This storm has all the ingredients for very large natural avalanches. Very dangerous conditions will develop Monday night and extend into Tuesday morning. Stay off of and out from under steep open slopes, particularly at middle and upper elevations.

Avalanche problems

  • Storm Slabs

    • Alpine
    • Treeline
    • Below treeline
    Likelihood
    Very Likely
    Size
    2–3

    Heavy precipitation, very strong and gusty winds, fluctuating temperatures, and known weaklayers in the snowpack…check, check, and double-check. Tuesday won’t be the day to try and outsmart the avalanche hazard. The danger is simple, and so is the solution. Stay away from places avalanches start, run, and stop. Very large natural avalanches are expected at middle and upper elevations. 

    While avalanches should be smaller and harder to trigger down low, you can still cause slides big enough to bury you and isolated larger avalanches could descend from above. 

    Call them storm, wind, or persistent slabs. It won’t matter. Any slide could be big and deadly. In some cases, avalanches could fail on or step down to older layers in the snowpack. These slides would be many feet deep and could wrap terrain features. A natural avalanche on Saturday and a human-triggered slide Sunday in the zone likely failed on these persistent weak layers.

    (1/7/2024)

    Skier triggered avalanche near Paradise.

    Photo: Alli/Mt Rainier Nordic Patrol

Avalanche Discussion

A major winter storm slams into the region late Monday night and early Tuesday morning. Very dangerous avalanche conditions should quickly develop overnight. Natural avalanches will probably occur in the pre-dawn hours along with the peak of the warming. Cooling temperatures on Tuesday will help. However, continued heavy snowfall and very strong winds will maintain a higher likelihood of natural avalanches, especially up high. If snowfall starts to taper later in the day, you could see a slow decline in the danger. At lower elevations, rain on the snowpack will help keep the hazard a bit more localized to the new snow. 

The snowpack in the West South zone is chock full of potential weaklayers. The two that seem to be the most common are the 1/2 and 12/30 crusts. These layers are suspected in a few recent avalanches and could “wake-up” during this major loading event. 

Observers on Monday reported stormy conditions and rising temperatures in the afternoon. “Things are getting a bit upside down.” Late in the day a few shallow isolated slabs were observed. 

Regions covered