Very warm temperatures, minimal refreeze overnight, and strong input from the sun will cause avalanche danger to rise from Low to Considerable throughout the day. Wet snow avalanches will become likely on steep slopes that have experienced warming over the past 4 days. Your best bet to avoid avalanches is to get in and out of the mountains early. If you are out later, avoid being on or underneath warming slopes. Wet avalanches could be large and dangerous.
The chances of triggering an avalanche failing on buried weak snow is unlikely, but can’t be ruled out just yet. Very steep, sheltered areas that face north above 8,500 feet is where you could encounter this problem. Slopes won’t give any warning that they are unstable, so carefully assess terrain where this problem lies and only expose one person at a time to suspect slopes.
Unseasonably warm temperatures have caused melting of our snowpack. Without solid refreezes at night this has led to a potentially unstable amount of water moving below the snow surface.
If you see rollerballs, feel punchy or unsupportable snow, or see natural wet avalanche activity, steep slopes have reached their tipping point and are becoming unstable. This is a clear sign to dial back terrain and avoid being on or underneath steep slopes that have been experiencing warming.
(3/19/2026)
Natural wet slab avalanche failing on an easterly slope in the Salt River Range.
Photo: Matt Brown
Multiple periods of strong winds formed large, overhanging cornices along ridgelines. As temperatures warm, cornices begin to sag and can collapse under their own weight. A fallen cornice can be dangerous by itself, but it also poses a threat of triggering an avalanche on the slopes where they land. Avoid being on or underneath cornices, especially during the heat of the day.
Recent cornice fall that triggered a stubborn wind slab.
Early summer conditions have come in March and the winter snowpack in the mountains is reeling from the change. The warm temperatures that our region is experiencing are causing surface snow to melt and work its way into the colder snowpack below. When we get proper freezing temperatures again, the snowpack will adjust to this, but currently, this free water in a winter snowpack is destabilizing it.
When water percolates through the snowpack, it pools on different layers such as crusts or buried weak layers, and at some point slopes can become overloaded by this and release, causing wet slab avalanches. Predicting when wet slab avalanches will release is trickier than dry slab avalanches since it is hard to know how much melt water movement there is in the snowpack across a mountain range. But past avalanche cycles have shown us that after multiple nights of minimal refreezing of the snowpack, wet slab avalanches increase in likelihood, and that's what is going on right now. There have already been reports of wet slabs in some of the warmer parts of our forecast area.
Because of the uncertainty surrounding when and where wet slab avalanches will fail, keep it simple. Get in and out of the mountains before slopes heat up too much. If you are out later, avoid being on or underneath steep slopes where wet slab avalanches are possible. Cold weather looks to return tomorrow so the wet snow problems of today should fade away, but need to be given respect until then.
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