Cooke City

Very dangerous avalanche conditions exist near Cooke City. Heavy snowfall and very strong winds have pushed the snowpack to its breaking point. Tree-snapping monster avalanches will run long distances, much farther than you may expect. 

From Thursday morning to Friday night, several feet of snow has fallen with nearly 2.5 inches of water which is a very heavy load. Additionaly, snowfall rates for most of Friday were greater than 1 inch/hour which is extremely rapid loading. Making matters worse, winds up to 70 mph have been drifting that snow all over the place. 

Some avalanches may break near the ground and others may break within the new snow. The only viable strategy is to avoid all avalanche terrain making sure to stay far away from avalanche runout zones.