Avalanche forecast

Central Cascades

Central Oregon Avalanche Center
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Avalanche danger

Thu
Alpine
2 · Moderate
Treeline
2 · Moderate
Below
2 · Moderate
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Out of date — this forecast expired 7 months ago. You’re viewing past conditions, not the current bulletin.

Highlights

Small wet avalanches will continue to be likely on Wednesday and large avalanches are possible.  Avalanche activity is most likely on sunny slopes, and later in the day when more snow has melted.  Time your travel to find pleasant and safe riding, or consider traveling on shadier slopes.

Avalanche problems

  • Loose Wet

    • Alpine
    • Treeline
    • Below treeline
    Likelihood
    Likely
    Size
    1–2

    Typically, the best tool for dealing with Wet avalanches is to consider what time you'll be traveling on sunny slopes.  Usually this means that if you are too early the slopes are too firm, and if you are too late in the day you may encounter more dangerous avalanche conditions.  On Wednesday, this will continue to be good guidance.  The difficulty this week has been unpredictable and very warm overnight temperatures.  On Monday night the temperatures at our weather station on Moon Mountain (7450 ft.) never dropped below the mid 40s F.  This means that some elevations only get a superficial refreeze (if that) and Wet Loose avalanches can occur a bit earlier in the day than they would with colder nights.

Avalanche Discussion

Riders on Tuesday encountered a wide variety of surface snow conditions.  I toured through breakable crust, mushy hot pow, proto-corn, and even some left over "pow".  It felt like a miracle that nice dry snow still existed.  As we move through the remainder of the week, the corn snow riding conditions should improve with each melt/freeze cycle.

Regions covered