Olympics

Downed trees, gushing creeks, and other access challenges will be your biggest challenge to reach rideable snow and potential avalanche concerns.  Above the snow line, reduce your exposure to steep rocky areas, unsupported chunks of snow, and areas where water is running under the snowpack. 

The temperature pendulum continues to swing upward through Saturday although the rain has mostly ended. Expect a crust to form overnight in open areas and break down with direct sunshine in some areas. The softened snow is unlikely to maintain much reactivity to human-triggered avalanches, but as always, apply typical preautions and avoid steep slopes if you into it past your boot tops. Given the massive amounts of water flowing through the snowpacks, keep an eye on the slopes above you where chunks of snow could fall without warning. Suspect areas include precariously perched snow, areas below steep rocky features, or brown frowns indicating that a glide crack might fail without warning. Areas with water running through or under the snowpack should be treated with extra suspicion. Even shallow snowpacks have a lot of weight right now given that they are fully saturated, so don't underestimate the potential force of falling chunks of snow right now.

We don't know exactly how much the snow has retreated upwards, but the atmospheric river has not been kind to the limited snowpacks in the Olympics. Hurricane Ridge has received 5.65" or water equivalent (mostly liquid) since Monday morning (12/8). Shallow snow cover clinging to middle-elevation north-facing slopes have likely not survived the rain and warmth. Several brief cool-downs during the last week may have brought several rounds with a few inches of snow to the highest terrain, however only skiff of snow made it down to the Hurricane Ridge parking lot during the most recent episode Tuesday night. 1" plowed snow "piles" are visible in the Hurricane Ridge parking lot along side bare grass on Friday.

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.

NWAC will issue an avalanche forecast every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday and every holiday mid-week day the Hurricane Ridge Road is open from December until the end of March.  We will issue Avalanche Watches or Warnings when conditions warrant.  We will not update the non-holiday midweek discussion.  Our mountain weather forecasts will continue to cover the Olympics and are issued twice a day through the end of April.  If you have questions or feedback, please contact us at [email protected] and [email protected].