East Slopes Central

Cloudy weather and gusty winds should result in generally safe avalanche conditions, especially if the snow surface freezes solid on Friday night. If you poke around higher elevation exposed terrain, you may find a very small shallow wind slab, but it shouldn’t be big enough to hurt you.

On some level, Saturday’s hazard depends on whether the snow surface has a chance to refreeze Friday night. If skies are clear enough for long enough any wet snow should “lock-up” and freeze solid. If clouds roll in quickly, the snow might not get a chance to freeze and it could remain wet and soft. In a zone as large and diverse as the East Central, odds are both will happen. Fortunately, either way avalanches should be small and few and far between. 

If the snow remains wet and weak there’s a very small chance you could push a small wet loose slide in very steep terrain or that block of snow might fall off a cliff. Both would be rare. You’ll probably know pretty fast if this is the case. Travel at lower elevations and on southerly aspects will be relatively soft and maybe punchy. 

However, if the snow surface cools with mostly clear skies in the evening any wet snow from Friday should freeze solid. While this would put any wet loose concerns (no matter how small) to bed, it will probably make for very slick and challenging travel. On firm smooth surfaces, a slip could quickly turn into a long uncontrolled slide 

At higher elevations and on shaded aspects, soft snow still exists. While it looks windy on Saturday, most of the soft snow has already been through a few rounds of wind. With limited snow available to blow around, building any new wind slabs seems unlikely. Even still, if you see active wind loading, be leery of steep slopes where the snow is landing. 

No matter your aspect, below the uppermost crust, we don’t have any avalanche concerns in the snowpack. The one exception to this could be if you travel in the far northern portions of the zone close to the East North area. With limited data in this remote region and the knowledge of lingering persistent weak layers in the adjacent zone, it’s worth approaching large northerly facing avalanche paths with some caution.

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