Avalanche Forecast

A cool upper trough will continue to sink south over the Pacific Northwest on Thursday. West winds should begin to decrease Thursday initially in the Olympics and north Cascades. Snow showers may another few inches to Hurricane.

Dangerous avalanche conditions should persist Thursday especially in the near and above treeline zones where new or recent wind slab be likely. Wind or storm avalanches should remain within recent storm layers but could move fast. Watch for evidence of wind deposited snow or pillows. Test for inverted strong over weak storm snow and give cornices a wide margin.

Loose dry avalanches in non-wind affected terrain may be difficult to manage on steep slopes. Even a small loose dry avalanche could have unintended consequences such as knocking you off your feet and into a terrain trap.

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

A series of cool storms has deposited increasing storm snow at relatively low freezing levels since early December. The last rain event occurred to the Hurricane Ridge elevation on December 17th. By Thursday morning Hurricane Ridge will have received about 3 feet of snow in the past few days.

NWAC pro observer, Matt Schonwald and an NPS ranger traveled extensively Friday around Hurricane Ridge testing the recent storm snow. 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. Skiing was very good.