West Slopes Central

Use normal caution in avalanche terrain. Carry the appropriate rescue gear and know how to use it. Only expose one person at a time to slopes steep enough to slide.  Steer around pockets of wind-drifted snow at upper elevations. Thick layers of wet or crusty snow can make for challenging travel, especially in areas with minimal snow cover. 

While precipitation fell as rain in most areas,  new snow has accumulated at upper elevations. Wind speeds were high enough to drift new snow into fresh slabs.  If traveling up into the alpine, note changes in new snow depth and stiffness as you gain elevation and change aspects. You are most likely to find fresh wind slabs on leeward slopes just below ridgeline. Scoured and textured snow surfaces can help you figure out which slopes could be loaded up with wind slab.

A cooling trend into the New Year should reduce any lingering instability at low and mid-elevations where warm temperatures and manky, wet snow have dominated for days. Yet upper-elevation slopes - the terrain that picked up new snow - could produce rollerballs and even a few wet avalanches with solar warming. Keep an eye on steep, south-facing terrain overhead if the sun makes an appearance.

A few West Central weather stations (Alpine Meadows and Skookum) recorded a half-inch of rain with less in other parts of the zone. White Chuck saw continued above-freezing temperatures and lost an inch of snow - which means it was still probably raining at 5000'. Light precipitation was recorded in Stevens or Snoqualmie Passes by day's end. Observers to the north reported wet, rainy conditions with Heather Meadows seeing 0.65” of rain by mid-afternoon.  No new avalanche activity was noted despite overnight temperatures well into the 40s and continued rainfall. There was however a new glide crack on the north aspect of Table Mt.  

The day prior, a team in the Hidden Lake Peaks area found wet snow up to 6000' with pockets of drier, wind-drifted snow above that elevation. They were able to trigger a small loose wet avalanche in alpine terrain.  Another team south of Baring on Hwy 2 found no signs of instability but did find thin snow cover up to 5000'.