Stevens Pass

Another wet, rainy period could bring more flooding, high winds, and concerns for non-avalanche hazards. Driving access into this zone is very difficult, and continuous snow is mostly above 6,000ft. If you are in snowy terrain and find recent avalanches or wet, uncohesive snow, stay off and out from under slopes steeper than 35 degrees.

By Monday afternoon, another 1.5" of water could fall, mostly as rain, and will be accompanied by strong wind. The existing snow has already been saturated and frozen numerous times. If you manage to reach upper elevations, you should be thinking about wet avalanches. While they're not out of the question, there are other important considerations for mountain travel. Avalanches are secondary to other issues facing the Stevens Pass zone. Getting to continuous snow is difficult. Highway 2 to Stevens Pass is currently closed in both directions. Flooding, washouts, downed trees, and damage to major roads are more imminent concerns. In addition to limiting access, these factors have limited the information available to produce this forecast. If you are in the mountains, please send us an observation, as we lack information.Major rain events since December 4th, culminating with 8.5" of water from December 9-11th, melted snow at middle and lower elevations. The last direct observation from upper elevations found over 3 feet of snow on November 28th. On Saturday, an NWAC forecaster had good views of many upper-elevation peaks. Wet avalanches likely occurred early during the 9th-11th, and some were large. It appeared that any avalanche debris piles were at least a couple of days old.With the warm start to the 25-26 winter season, we have less snowpack information than usual to start daily forecast operations. For zones and elevation bands with less snow than needed for avalanche hazard, we will issue a forecast with No Rating. Anticipated avalanche and weather conditions will still be updated daily. NWAC will issue an avalanche danger rating for a zone when enough snow to produce avalanches has accumulated at middle and upper elevations.