Avalanche Forecast

Wind slabs will become more difficult to trigger Tuesday, but may still be encountered on north to southeast aspects, near and above tree line. NW winds may redistribute recent snowfall to lee SE slopes above treeline Tuesday. Any triggered wind slab avalanches should be relatively small and remain within recent storm layers. Test for inverted strong over weak storm snow and give cornices a wide margin.

Dry loose avalanches have been removed as an avalanche problem from the forecast as recent deep snow continues to settle making these less likely. However, continue to watch for the possibility of loose dry avalanches in steep non-wind affected terrain that could have unintended  such as knocking you off your feet and into a terrain trap.

There have been snow immersion fatalities in tree wells already this season at Snoqualmie and in Canada. Recent unconsolidated storm snow is still very deep in places with possible large tree wells lurking, so stick near your partner in the trees and maintain visual contact.  

For the week ending on Dec. 24th, a snowy and cool storm cycle brought 6-7 feet of snowfall to Mt. Hood NWAC stations. Only light additional accumulations over the last few days have allowed the snowpack to gradually settle, but it remains deep out there with generally great skiing and riding!  

In non-wind affected areas, the upper snowpack should generally be right side up with increasing hardness with depth. Moderate S-SW transport winds with Sunday's frontal system may have built shallow new wind slab on N through E aspects. 

The most recent snowpack and avalanche observations include control work with explosives on Christmas by the Mt. Hood Meadows pro-patrol, as they were able to trigger large avalanches on specific wind loaded slopes near treeline that stepped down to the Dec.17th rain crust. However, these results were not repeatable on other slopes of similar aspect and elevation with larger explosives.