Avalanche Forecast

Archived

Jan 25th, 2019–Jan 26th, 2019

Alpine

Natural avalanches unlikely, human triggered possible.

Treeline

Natural avalanches unlikely, human triggered possible.

Below Treeline

Natural avalanches unlikely.

Alpine

Natural avalanches unlikely, human triggered possible.

Treeline

Natural avalanches unlikely, human triggered possible.

Below Treeline

Natural avalanches unlikely.

Regions

Stevens Pass.

The Bottom Line: Expect the warmest temperatures of the winter, so far. Warming, sun, and uncertainty of the snow layers at upper elevations will maintain heightened conditions. If you are heading to higher slopes, use caution on slopes 35 degrees and steeper.

Snow and Avalanche Discussion

With warming and sun, uncertainty about the snowpack is increasing. Most loose wet avalanches you will see are a few days old. You may encounter soft, wet snow on sunny slopes and low elevations.

About 13” of snow, followed by rain on Tuesday night and Wednesday led to a widespread natural avalanche cycle throughout the Cascades. Many large paths in the area ran including Wellington, Highway Chutes, Lichtenberg Southeast side, Arrowhead Northeast Bowl, The Swath, and likely others. It rained up to around 5,000ft, but at that elevation the crust is reported to be fairly thin.

Problems

Persistent Slabs

Persistent Slab avalanches are the release of a cohesive layer of snow (a slab) in the middle to upper snowpack, when the bond to an underlying persistent weak layer breaks. Persistent layers include: surface hoar, depth hoar, near-surface facets, or faceted snow. Persistent weak layers can continue to produce avalanches for days, weeks or even months, making them especially dangerous and tricky. As additional snow and wind events build a thicker slab on top of the persistent weak layer, this avalanche problem may develop into a Deep Persistent Slab.