Avalanche Forecast

Continued cool weather with snow showers and moderate winds overnight should build further storm slabs. A brief decrease is expected early Tuesday ahead of another approaching Pacific frontal system. The next system moves into the Cascades early Tuesday afternoon with renewed moderate snow and moderate westerly winds. This should begin to build new areas of wind slab on lee slopes below ridges and create more extensive storm slabs.

Dangerous avalanche conditions are expected in the above and near treeline bands Tuesday, especially later in the day.

Remember to give cornices a wide margin. Also above tree line strong winds recently have scoured snow from exposed slopes, leaving exposed rock and vegetation. 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. There has been about 1-2.5 feet of snowfall over the past five days.  

NWAC pro observer Tom Curtis was at Rainy Pass near Stevens Pass on Wednesday and noted extensive surface hoar. This layer may have been buried intact Thursday though no evidence of avalanches due to the layer has been reported.

Tom visited Mt Cashmere via the Icicle Creek drainage Thursday and did not find the persistent layer of buried surface hoar seen prior to the rain event December 8-9. There has been good evidence that the rain event destroyed this layer along the east slopes so the PWL has been removed as an avalanche problem along the east slopes. Tom did note small storm and wind slab up to near treeline, but did not venture higher.

The Mission Ridge pro patrol on Friday reported widespread sensitive 4-8 inch storm slab avalanches but then reported no significant avalanche activity on Saturday.

A back country skier on Mt Cashmere on Saturday found about 5 inches of new snow and a right side up upper snow pack with no results from snow pit tests and ski cuts.

A guide report from Sunday in the Washington Pass zone, indicated excellent snow and good stability with about a foot of unconsolidated storm snow. No slab character was noted in the storm snow in travel to about 7000 feet, though safe travel and good route finding techniques may be just as evident in that report! 

The southeast zone should have a much shallower snowpack, more affected by recent rain and warm temperatures. However, we have no recent observations from the southeast zone.