Avalanche Forecast

An upper ridge will weaken slightly, but remain over the region Saturday. This will cause light winds, sunny weather and mild temperatures. High clouds should move in during the day a weak frontal system approaches.

Cooler east winds in the lower Cascade passes should maintain periods of low clouds or fog, especially in the valleys east of the crest with fog reaching Snoqualmie at times.

This weather will cause little change in snow conditions and the low snowpack will cause an overall low danger. The only limited avalanche problem to watch for should be loose wet avalanches above treeline. But the likelihood and size will be listed as unlikely and small respectively

Last weekend a warm front caused high snow levels and rain. Most NWAC sites west of the crest had about 1-3 inches of rain. This caused loose wet avalanches, some possible wet slab avalanches and consolidation. West of the crest a lot of water was seen in and draining from the snow pack.

This week, high pressure aloft has caused abundant sunshine and mild temperatures, generally well into the 40's and at times lower 50's.

The snowpack is therefore dominated by strong surface crusts, limiting the avalanche potential. There has been some surface hoar growth over the past few clear nights and this may be preserved on sun shaded terrain and mainly found below about 5000 feet, and especially at lower elevations where more fog or low clouds have formed.

NWAC forecaster Dennis D'Amico found previous loose wet avalanches on Monday on this SE aspect at about 6500 feet in the Paradise Glacier Valley, possibly triggered by small cornice drops during the weekend rain event. Here are a couple of his photos.

The snowpack west of the crest should mainly consist of stable consolidated rounded grains or melt forms and crusts from multiple warm periods this winter.