Avalanche forecast

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Northwest Avalanche Center
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Avalanche danger

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Out of date — this forecast expired 2 years ago.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

Highlights

Once you get above the valley clouds, sunny weather should make it a nice day to venture into the alpine. Watch out for blobs of snow shedding from rocky faces or pockets of wind drifted snow in the tops of chutes. Even if most of these slides should be small, they could take you for a nasty ride.

Avalanche problems

  • Loose Wet

    • Alpine
    • Treeline
    • Below treeline
    Likelihood
    Possible
    Size
    1–1.5

    Wet loose slides shouldn’t be an issue right out of the gate. The surface crust will need to break down before you have to worry too much about wet snow. This will happen faster around rocks and cliffs basking in the sun. While you may be able to push a small wet loose slide, it’s the chunks of snow falling off cliffs and entraining snow below that have our attention. Don’t linger underneath rocky faces.

    With some of the warmest temperatures up high, you could see the largest wet loose slides occur at upper elevations. Temperature inversions and multiple freezing levels might make this issue more common in the alpine than you normally encounter.

    (12/4/2024)

    Example: Wet loose slides releasing from rocky faces earlier this winter. 

    Photo: Drew Lovell

  • Wind Slabs

    • Alpine
    • Treeline
    • Below treeline
    Likelihood
    Possible
    Size
    1

    Moderate winds on Tuesday likely drifted a few small slabs among the higher peaks. You’re most likely to find a firm pillow-like slab in more confined features like the top of a chute or complex rocky terrain. Keep an eye out for textured snow, subtle drifts, or small wind lips that tip you off to small wind loaded features. These slabs should be shallow and small, but given the terrain, they could result in big consequences. 

    These wind loaded pockets will be the most reactive where they form over a slick crust or weaker snow grains. This will take some investigating and digging with your hand. When in doubt look for less wind affected snow.

    (1/3/2025)

    Notice the subtle texturing of this wind slabs that produced a shooting crack when tested.

    Photo: Katie Warren

Avalanche Discussion

Mostly clear skies Wednesday night should allow the snow surface to cool and any softened snow to refreeze. Reports from the past several days note a crust on southerly slopes. This will still be the case on Thursday. Until the crust breaks down, you’ll likely find generally safe avalanche conditions outside of the few wind affected slopes. 

Temperature inversions and clouds should keep the valleys cold and limit any avalanche danger at the lower elevations. Even if it feels wintery down low, it should be a different world up high with much more sunshine and warmer temperatures. 

We’re not that far removed from a prolonged stormy period that steadily grew the snowpack through the holidays. It also left a variety of curst and interfaces to keep an eye on. Most notable are buried surface hoar (1/1) only a few inches (10-15cm) below the surface and a thin melt-freeze crust with facets typically just over a foot (40cm) down. These layers have produced inconsistent snowpack test results. They may just lack the right combination of slab and weak layer to produce slides. One unusual avalanche on Pica Peak (Poster Peak), highlights the potential for additional older weak layers that are not fully put to bed. This slide occurred on an obviously wind loaded unsupported slope. Our next storm on Friday might not be the system to wake up these older layers, but it could add to the complexity.

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