Avalanche forecast

Silver Valley & Bitterroot Mountains

Idaho Panhandle Avalanche Center
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Avalanche danger

Tue
Alpine
1 · Low
Treeline
1 · Low
Below
1 · Low
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Out of date — this forecast expired 5 months ago. You’re viewing past conditions, not the current bulletin.

Highlights

A weak overnight freeze where temperatures hovered at or slightly above freezing despite clear skies will allow surfaces to soften quicker than expected. Be mindful of how soft surfaces get on slopes facing east through south to west by frequently stepping off your boards or machine to gauge how deep you sink into wet, unconsolidated snow. If you sink past boot tops or see fresh rollerballs from steeper terrain or near rocks and cliffs, back off sunnier slopes and retreat to shadier ones, or call it a day.

Avalanche problems

  • Loose Wet

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

    After an extended period of rain and above freezing temperatures last week, the upper snowpack is starting to lock up following multiple nights of a decent to solid surface refreeze. With mostly clear skies again on Monday, snow surfaces are expected to soften during peak daytime warming. While surface softening will aid wet snow hazards once again, this threat is becoming more isolated in the terrain with each softening-refreeze cycle the surface undergoes. Places where you can push wet, unconsolidated snow downhill, those slides have potential to grow larger in size and entrain additional snow volume.

    Pay attention to changing surface conditions and be ready to adjust your travels or recreation choices to shadier slopes. Be wary of lingering in depressions or other terrain traps since small slides can become more problematic when wet debris piles up deeper than expected.

    (3/19/2026)

    Wet Loose debris from avalanches that released naturally was abundant in chutes and gullies. Some debris ran long distances as it entrained more snow.

    March 19, 2026

     

    Photo: Izzy Davis

Avalanche Discussion

From March 16 to 21, the majority of our mountains received around 1.5 inches of rain. The Southern Selkirk, and East and West Cabinet Mountains that were victim to the unfortunate atmospheric river bulls-eye landed in the 2.5 to 3.5 inches of rain category. This burst of liquid precipitation came almost immediately on the heels of a cold snowy period that delivered 2 to 5 feet of snow. This is the perfect recipe for many large to very large Wet Slab avalanches, right? So far, that has not been verified, but travel in the mountains during steady rain is often much less than under sunny skies or blissful power.

The limited field observations on file this week did report many Loose Wet avalanches across all aspects and elevations originating from all the common places - steeper terrain, gullies, and below rocks/ cliff bands. As they moved further downhill, the debris entrained additional snow volume but most individual slides remained small in size. Where they occurred in clusters, the debris approached size 2 and contained enough volume to catch and potentially bury a person or machine.

Now that cooler weather has returned and we are not expecting meaningful rain for a couple of days, our aforementioned wet hazards will continue to be less concerning. It’s nearly impossible to know exactly when or how many days it takes free water to fully drain through the snowpack or get sponged up. Each time the snow surface refreezes overnight, additional water input quickly decreases. However, daytime warming can turn the flow back on so day to day evaluations around surface softening-wetting are prudent in the spring.

The weather that helped evolve and shape the snowpack across our forecast zones over the last 53 days has not disappointed. 53 days ago is when the first of two surface hoar layers got buried. Over this period, these layers produced many natural avalanches, provided propagating failures in tests, and made the snowpack very vocal for an extended period. With each loading period, our test results changed and natural avalanches as a result of these layers became fewer in number. After a wet, warm period and now buried over a meter deep with no new reported avalanches in these layers, we decided to remove the Persistent Slab avalanche problem - but not erased from the avalanche brain.

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