Avalanche Forecast

We expect gradually improving avalanche conditions as weather inputs have eased over the last 36 hours with only a dusting of new snow, light winds and cold temperatures (hovering around 20F on Wednesday). We expect similar weather over the next 24 hours with a chance of light snow and some sun breaks on Thursday. A major increase in avalanche danger should come with a storm on Friday.

Looking backward, a massive storm cycle since 12/31 brought 7.32” of water equivalent and added 46” to the total snow depth before the most recent snow changed to a rain or a rain/snow mix with temperatures hovering just above freezing at the NWAC weather station on Hurricane Ridge Monday through late Tuesday. We don’t know exactly how high the rain made it, but based on the Forks sounding, it probably reached at least 5500 ft. The change to rain likely triggered a widespread wet avalanche cycle within the approximately 3 ft of snow that fell Friday night through early Monday afternoon. We estimate that about 5" of snow may have fallen during the cooling phase of the storm, and this snow sits on a refreezing upper snowpack near and below treeline.

We are most concerned about elevations above the estimated 5500 ft snow line where large, dense storm slabs or wind slabs may linger beneath the lower-density storm snow and wind slabs, in particular, take a longer time to heal. Step back and assess what you see before delving into upper elevation avalanche terrain on Thursday and heed the Bottom Line travel advice.

New Regional Synopsis coming soon. We update the Regional Synopsis every Thursday at 6 pm.