Avalanche Forecast

An upper trough and cool air mass will sink to the south of the Northwest on Friday. Alpine winds should decrease and become northwest with light snow showers ending over the Olympics by Friday morning. Some sun should be seen at Hurricane by Friday afternoon.

This weather should not build new snow pack layers and a gradual consolidating and stabilizing trend should begin by Friday. Cool temperatures may somewhat slow the stabilizing but the avalanche danger should be less than the previous couple days.

Recent wind slab will be most likely to linger on north to east slopes in the above and near tree line. Wind and storm slab avalanches should remain within recent storm layers but could still move fast. Test for inverted strong over weak storm snow and give cornices a wide margin.

Beware of loose dry avalanches in steep non-wind affected terrain that could have unintended consequences such as knocking you off your feet and into a terrain trap.

Remember to discuss plans with your partners or steer clear of high consequence terrain until there is more information and we know more about what is going on out there.

Terrain anchors are still causing anchoring at the lowest elevations, but less and less with every storm passage!

We have had nearly a week of heavy snow and cool temperatures in the Olympics and Cascades. It looks like Hurricane Ridge has received about 4 feet of snowfall in the past week. The last rain event at Hurricane Ridge was December 17th.

NWAC pro observer Matt Schonwald and an NPS ranger toured around Hurricane Ridge last Friday. The snow pack was mostly unconsolidated low density surface snow with a gradually increasing density down to the well bonded crust, a very good profile as of late last week. No slab character was noted in the upper snowpack during testing. Only isolated wind slabs were noted with no releases. Extensive cornices were noted on north to northeast sides of ridges.