West Slopes Central

New snow amounts are not impressive, but the warming trend at higher elevations could create shallow new-snow instabilities. Look for strong-over-weak layering as you gain elevation, and use hand pits and test slopes to evaluate bonding between new snow layers.

Winds are not forecast to be particularly strong, but you are still more likely to trigger an avalanche on wind-loaded slopes that hold slightly thicker and more sensitive slabs. Unstable slabs might also be found at and below 5000 feet in the morning if colder, drier snow falls overnight.

The number and size of wet-loose avalanches on Friday are up for debate, but it is a given the upper snowpack is currently moist or wet up to 5000-5500 feet. It should mostly stay that way with rising snow levels and light rainfall.

Avoid travel on or directly below slopes showing signs of wet avalanche instability, such as rollerballs and very small wet slides, or where the snow is wet and sloppy. If rainfall is greater than expected, we could start to see wet slab avalanche activity as well.

Persistent slab avalanches can be large, break wide across terrain features, and be triggered from a distance. The likelihood of triggering one appears to be decreasing as continued loading from rain and wet snow has not produced new slab avalanches in areas that were active recently. Numerous wet-loose avalanches in the past few days have also failed to pull out deeper slabs.

Even so, this remains a high-consequence problem. Avoid large, open, steep terrain—especially where the snowpack may be thinner or more variable. Whumphing or shooting cracks are red flags, but don't count on getting warned beforehand. It’s possible to dig down and look for layers of buried surface hoar or facets and evaluate stability, but the easiest solution may be to avoid steep, unsupported slopes where these avalanches were reported recently. These layers could also wake up with a bigger shot of rain this weekend.