Eastside Region

Avalanches are unlikely. Assess extreme terrain for small wind drifts and wet surface snow on slopes facing the sun. Getting knocked off your feet or hitting a shallowly buried obstacle in steep terrain can still have severe consequences.

While much of the Intermountain West is contending with lingering persistent weak layers, we continue with a persistently stable (and thin) snowpack.  After several weeks of wind as the main driver in our snowpack, this switched to temperatures and the sun this earlier week. A brief couple of days of warm-ups with freezing levels close to 11,500' led to no notable wet loose activity. 

This weekend brings the promise of cold temperatures, and in an Eastside classic weather pattern, "20 feet of wind with maybe 2 inches of snow." Cool temperatures and an uptick in winds will likely not have too much impact on the snowpack heading into the weekend, unless we get more precipitation than forecasted. 

Travel conditions are your most important consideration heading into the mountains today. The combination of extreme wind events from around the compass during the past several weeks and sunny weather have brought us a mix of surfaces. We have everything from slick, icy, and firm supportable crusts, sastrugi, windboard and wind slabs, as well as breakable crusts of varying thicknesses. In some colder, more sheltered areas, expect to find weakening dry, loose pockets of snow overlying any of these firmer surfaces. Considering if you need crampons, ski crampons, or ice axe for safe travel to your objective can increase your margin for safety. Shallowly buried obstacles still present one of our biggest hazards.