While the hazard has dropped from high to considerable it is important to remember that human triggered avalanches are likely and natural avalanches are possible. Practice careful snowpack evaluation, cautious routefinding especially around large open slopes and convex rolls, and conservative decision making in any avalanche terrain. With rain and or heavy wet snow to the highest elevations of Douglas expect these instabilities on all elevations and aspects.
Wet slab is again a primary problem as liquid water continues to saturate the snowpack. This process will continue to weight down the slab potentially weakening layers underneath and continuing the potential for wet slab avalanches. This problem exists on all aspects and elevations.
Liquid water hasn't made it all the way through our snow pack in upper elevation terrain yet leaving faceted layers of snow near the ground mostly undisturbed. These persistent weak layers will continue to be strained as loading from rain/snow continue making large persistent slab avalanches possible in middle and upper elevation terrain.
Saturated snow in the upper layers of the snow pack and continued rain on snow will keep wet loose avalanches as a problem today in middle and lower elevation terrain. While wet loose avalanches often start small, they can rapidly increase in size and speed. Wet loose avalanches make terrain traps like gulleys and confined chutes particularly hazardous.
Another warm wet day is in store for the mountains of Douglas Island today. Yesterday saw periods of rain/snow and breezy E-SE winds at upper elevations. The snow/rain line stayed mostly above 2500' and we saw around .5-.75" of snow water equivalent for the 24 hour period. With the sustained warm weather and precipitation, avalanche hazard will remain elevated with a similar list of avalanche problems as yesterday. As liquid water works its way through the snow pack wet slab and wet loose avalanches will remain possible. In middle and upper elevation terrrain we still have an ongoing persistent slab problem with deeply buried facets in some locations that continue to be strained by loading from new rain and snow. As we go into the work week, conditions are forecasted to remain similar with warm temperatures and precipitation expected to continue for most of the week. This will likely keep todays avalanche problems as hazards for several days to come. CBJ and AKDOT still have public avalanche advisories posted. We encourage people to continue to check these resources to keep informed of changing conditions regarding our current urban and highway avalanche hazards.
