Avalanche forecast

East Slopes South

Northwest Avalanche Center
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Avalanche danger

Wed
Alpine
2 · Moderate
Treeline
2 · Moderate
Below
1 · Low
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Out of date — this forecast expired 6 months ago. You’re viewing past conditions, not the current bulletin.

Highlights

Triggering a large avalanche that breaks widely on buried weak layers 1-3 feet down should remain your primary concern. The likelihood of this is gradually decreasing, but it remains a worrisome possibility. Don’t expect any obvious signs of instability before triggering a slide.

Avalanche problems

  • Persistent Slabs

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

    Buried layers ranging from 1-3 ft deep have produced avalanches in this zone as recently as 2/28 (observation here). The likelihood of triggering one of these dangerous slabs are decreasing as temperatures drop, but the size and consequence won’t. Do not expect to receive obvious signs of instability before triggering avalanches on Tuesday. Your best mitigation strategy will be to avoid all steep, open slopes greater than 30 degrees, especially in areas where the wind has formed deeper drifts. 

    (2/28/2026)

    A large, machine-triggered persistent slab avalanche on 2/28.

    HS-AMu-R2-D2-O, NE, 6700'

Avalanche Discussion

The danger has dropped, but that doesn’t mean you can’t trigger a large avalanche that will be large enough to ruin your day and many others. The cooling trend will help the upper snowpack gain some strength after a stretch of warm, sunny days and it may also set the stage for the ‘scary moderate’ conditions, meaning the snowpack won’t provide much information before triggering large avalanches. 

The East South did pretty well last week with weather stations picking up over 1 inch of snow water equivalent. This has helped improve travel conditions, but also created the necessary slab to produce avalanches over a well documented weak layer from the January drought. I verified this on March 1st when I visited Ahtanum Meadows when i stumbled upon a human triggered persistent slab avalanche that broke up to 2 feet deep on buried surface hoar and facets. Notably, I found this weak layer on both E and W aspects that day. You can check out my full observation here. 

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