Avalanche Forecast

The timing and track of the incoming low pressure system remains pretty consistent among the numerical weather models.

The deep low pressure system should move across the northwest tip of the Olympic Peninsula and across south Vancouver Island Sunday afternoon and evening. This should bring stormy weather and heavy snow to the Olympics by Sunday afternoon. A vigorous, strong front should rapidly cross the area and cause rapidly shifting winds Sunday evening.

The main avalanche problem at Hurricane Sunday should be increasing strong winds and increasing moderate to heavy snow rapidly 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.

Dangerous avalanche conditions are expected by Sunday afternoon and back country travel is not recommended Sunday in avalanche terrain at Hurricane near and above treeline.

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.