Flathead Range & Glacier NP

A welcome few inches of new snow has not increased the avalanche danger. Surface obstacles remain a hazard at all elevations. Enjoy your new year while managing your sluff, especially on slick crusts on sunny aspects. 

Happy New Year from all of us at the Flathead Avalanche Center. We’ve got some good news- snow and cool temperatures returned to the Flathead Valley on Sunday. Snow accumulations were limited to 1-2 inches in most of the forecast region. However, Stahl Peak and Noisy Basin SNOTELs each squeezed out 0.5 inches of Snow Water Equivalent (SWE). That likely amounts to 4 inches of settled snow in the areas near these stations.

You may trigger mostly harmless sluffs on very steep slopes today. Sunday's snow is resting on a slick crust on sunny aspects, which got baked over the past few days by above-average temperatures and sunshine.  Observers reported northerlies continue to hold dry, settled powder (Observation 1, Observation 2), which may be faceted. Sluffs won't involve enough snow to be consequential except in steep chutes, long-running gullies, above cliffs, or above terrain traps. 

Entering the New Year, our region’s Snow Water Equivalent - the water in the snow sitting on the ground - remains well below the median for this date at area SNOTELs. Locally, the northern Whitefish Range is doing best, with 83% at Stahl Peak. The Swan Range is recording 68% at Noisy Basin, with Flattop in central Glacier Park at 65%. As disappointing as this seems, we are actually doing much better than many other watersheds across the western US. Unfortunately, our SWE numbers would be much better if not for the warm start to the season. Looking at precipitation totals - the amount of water that's fallen from the sky - for the water year starting October 1, Stahl Peak is at 101% of the 30-year median.