Current Conditions
If you're bemoaning the slow start to winter in Washington, we've got good news for you! The Thanksgiving holiday was a little bit of mayhem in the Methow Valley. While the forecast called for rain in the valleys (and at times at higher elevations), we got walloped with a lot of heavy, wet snow. Our driveways were a mess, our power was out and our backs may have been tweaked from shoveling, but us skiers rejoiced with several feet of snow falling at higher elevations. The storm ended with some mixed precipitation and warm temps quickly leading to windy and frigid conditions that created one last pulse of low-density snow. Yesterday, I toured on North, South and West aspects and was pleasantly surprised to find great skiing on all of them. In wind-exposed areas, we found some trickier wind-affected snow, but below ridgetops, there was creamy powder with about 20-30cm of ski penetration. The good skiing is definitely limited to higher elevations (>~5000'), but it is definitely good!
Snowpack Observations
Our primary current avalanche problems are small isolated windslabs in the alpine. The rainy period near the end of the Thanksgiving storm cycle produced some impressive avalanches throughout our zone and helped to consolidate the snowpack. In looking to the future, we found huge (up to 30mm) surface hoar from about 5000' to 6500' on December 3rd. It was formed during the cold and clear period that just ended, and was buried by the smaller snow falls during the past 2-3 days. Yesterday, we dug on several North facing aspects where I expected to find the buried SH, but we weren't able to find it. While I'm hopeful that some of the SH was destroyed, I believe that this weak layer is likely fairly widespread on sheltered aspects between ~5000' and ~7000' and will likely continue to be a concern with additional snowfall. If you're skiing around the WA pass area in the coming weeks, please take a moment to dig and look for the buried SH layer and let NWAC know about your observations via the observations submission form on their website.
This page is for informational purposes only and is no substitute for gathering your own observations in the field and checking the avalanche report at www.nwac.us.
Skiing Forecast
A warm, wet pattern is coming our way -- valley rain and potentially heavy mountain snows are in store for us in the coming week. I'm hopeful that we'll get lucky again with the WA pass area receiving lots of denser snow!
