Avalanche forecast

East Cabinet Mountains

Idaho Panhandle Avalanche Center
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Avalanche danger

Thu
Alpine
3 · Considerable
Treeline
3 · Considerable
Below
3 · Considerable
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Highlights

Rain, wet snow, persistent weak layers, wind, more snow…The past 72 hours have built a complicated upper snowpack layer cake. The potential for a shallow slide to provoke a failure in deeply buried weak snow grains should drive your decision making today. Don’t let the abundant sunshine and nice temperatures tempt you into consequential terrain. As the day warms, the threat of wet avalanches at lower elevations come into play, so pay attention to clues of surface warming like rollerballs or pinwheels. Avoid exposure to steep, overhead hazards or traveling below large avalanche paths to help reduce your avalanche risk.

Avalanche problems

  • Wet Slabs

    • Alpine
    • Treeline
    • Below treeline
    Likelihood
    Likely
    Size
    2

    Rain saturated snow in the upper snowpack and above freezing overnight temperatures keeps a lingering threat of triggering a wet snow avalanche on slopes steeper than about 30 degrees. Loose snow slides that travel long distances can gouge deeper and leave a dangerous pile of snow at the bottom of a slope, or in gullies and creek bottoms. Some wet avalanches may fail as a more dangerous slab of wet snow, and those types of avalanches will be more difficult to escape. Despite the rain coming to an end, water will likely continue to percolate toward weaker interfaces or buried crusts as temperatures stay mild around 5,000 feet and lower. If you see fresh glide cracks or older ones that look wider, avoid traveling on or below those slopes.

    (2/24/2025) Photo: Micah Krmpotich

  • Storm Slabs

    • Alpine
    • Treeline
    • Below treeline
    Likelihood
    Likely
    Size
    2–2.5

    More wet, heavy snow has built another storm snow layer on the surface. These slabs sit above a harder interface where rain saturated the snowpack then re-froze, or onto prior snowfall at elevations above the rain line. To keep things simple, this has added more depth of recent snow and weight to a snowpack that has shown it's true colors in the last few days. The significant hardness difference between the storm snow of the last few days to what sits underneath is a major factor of the elevated sensitivity. Dense slabs of snow have a higher potential to break wider than you expect, even in wind-sheltered areas. If you're lucky to only observe signs of unstable snow like cracking or collapsing without triggering an avalanche, that's good fortune. Simply avoid exposing yourself or your group to steeper slopes until the new snow has a chance to catch a breath. 

    (2/24/2025)

    Many small, D1-2, loose wet and storm slab avalanches observed on all aspects above 6,000'.

    Photo: Mikey Church

  • Persistent Slabs

    • Alpine
    • Treeline
    • Below treeline
    Likelihood
    Possible
    Size
    2–3

    Prior to this weekend's storm, lingering weak layers - surface hoar, faceted grains, and a faceted crust - two to three feet deep were the culprit of the atypical, lingering instability in the upper snowpack. Snowpack tests on slopes near treeline down to about 5,000 feet continued to produce ongoing failures in these weak grains. Preserved surface hoar lingered on north to east-facing slopes, while southeast through south to west-facing slopes harbored a layer of facets or a breakable crust with facets lurking above and below. What is not known is how deep recent rainfall percolated into the snowpack and whether it made deep enough to weaken bonds in these persistent grains, or alter their change completely, though we did . The added water load to the overlying slab is enough to flex the sensitivity needle even if these grains did not see liquid water.

    (2/16/2025)

    Surface hoar feathers are still 10 to 12 mm in size below a stiffening slab. While becoming harder to impact, they still produce propagating failures in tests. Selkirk Mountains. February 16, 2025.

    Photo: Chris Bilbrey

Avalanche Discussion

In the wake of the weather over the last 72 hours, today is a day to take stock of the situation and don’t fall trap to heuristics driven by nice weather and soft, fresh surfaces. There are a lot of variables at play in the upper snowpack - some dry and some wet in origin. While quick change can be inflicted on the snowpack, quick change after the fact is not a strong attribute of snow.

Impressive amounts of liquid water infiltrated the upper snowpack, but how deep it traveled remains unknown. The unfortunate part is snowfall returned rather quickly after the warm storm sector moved on, and this likely insulated the wetted snow preventing it from a hard refreeze. Observers in the northern West Cabinet Mountains on Tuesday found this wetted layering punchy and unconsolidated. Dense slabs of snow above will likely remain reactive till consecutive nights of clear skies and below freezing temperatures helps the upper snowpack consolidate.

The looming wet snow below the new snow will act as a different beast at lower elevations where overnight temperatures were milder and today’s sun and warmth will be more intense. Free water is likely hung up in the snowpack at lower elevations and further melting input from today’s above freezing temperatures could kick off a moment of wet snow avalanches. These are more likely of the Loose Wet avalanche type, but Wet Slab avalanches should not be ruled out. Sticking to more northerly-facing slopes may help reduce your exposure to lower elevation wet problems. If you do encounter wet, sticky snow, calling it a day or moving higher in elevation may be the best play.

Our lingering Persistent Slab avalanche problem continues to migrate deeper in the snowpack. What does that mean? Harder to trigger, but if you do…avalanches will be large to very large, potentially destructive, and extremely difficult to escape. Before this storm and where the slab above the January Drought Layer (JDL) was around two feet deep, some observations report liquid water reaching this interface. Where the slab was deeper - consistent across our northern zones - observers report this interface remains dry and intact. Regardless, manage your travels to limit the chance of a near-surface avalanche provoking a deeper one.

If you decide to head into the mountains today, be ready to manage various problems from aspect to aspect, and up and down through elevation. Keep things simple and limit the temptation to thread the snowpack-terrain needle. Avoidance remains the best card in the deck till the snowpack has a chance to catch its breath.

Regions covered