This storm over the last few days deposited huge volumes of snow on a weak bed surface. It came in upside down adding to the problem. We have seen both natural and human triggered avalanches on most all aspects. As warming and loading continue today danger remains high.

This storm over the last few days deposited huge volumes of snow on a weak bed surface. It came in upside down adding to the problem. We have seen both natural and human triggered avalanches on most all aspects. As warming and loading continue today danger remains high.

The National Weather Service Forecasts-

Today- Windy. Rain...heavy at times. Highs around 44. Southeast wind 10 to 20 mph increasing to 25 mph with gusts to around 40 mph in the afternoon.

Tonight- Windy. Rain. Lows around 43. Southeast wind to 25 mph with gusts to around 40 mph.

Tuesday- Rain. Highs around 42. Southeast wind 10 to 20 mph.

This is quite a storm we have seen the last few days. We have picked up a great deal of precipitation, snow, windloading, and all during warming. This was all deposited on an old hard bed surface with faceting in places. It started with some colder snow and then we got a big dump Saturday into Sunday.

We picked up 2'-3' of snow around the region in our mountain avalanche zones.

From late Saturday into yesterday we saw a fair amount of natural avalanches. The lower part of the Berhands Path released. Several of the paths up the Perseverance Trail cleaned. Thane slid and filled the berm. Cross Bay slid down over the bench.

Eaglecrest did a lot of avalanche mitigation yesterday and had a lot of snow avalanching with slabs up to 3+' deep releasing.

Up Dan Moller conditions were also quite active. Sunday morning you could see old crown lines were natural slides had occurred on Saturday and overnight. Most had filled back in and there was additional concern on some previously avalanched slopes. Snowmobilers for the most part stayed out of the bigger avalanche paths and played in the woods down lower in the bowl. But even there they found weakness. Snowmobilers were able to trigger slabs that fractured from clearing to clearing through the forest. Breaking out roughly 80 yards wide from a single trigger point.

Snowpit tests yesterday up the Dan Moller Basin were also very weak. The weak layer varied from 66-78cm in depth where I performed my tests at 3 separate sites. While isolating columns for compression tests the sides would fail on inserting my shovel. I was able to isolate Compression tests in most locations and got very low scores from 3-5 on most. Extended Column Tests were also very weak and the first several I tried failed while isolating the block. Even propagation saw tests failed very easily on most tests barely inserting the saw blade.

The snowpack was very weak yesterday on most aspects from what I saw.

Temperatures have warmed about 3f degrees over the last 24 hours up through the point of freezing in most locations. Eaglecrest is currently 32f at the top, 35f mid mountain and 39f at the base. Mt Roberts also came up well above freezing in the last 24 hours and is currently 36f. The forecast calls for another 3f of warming today into the 2pm timeframe. Conditions will continue to get more questionable during this warming.

The forecast calls for another .5\" of water over the next 24 hours which is not a huge load and yet at above freezing temperatures it will continue to weaken the snowpack. We received over an inch again yesterday at Eaglecrest and nearly the same on Mt Roberts continuing to add stress to an already weak snowpack.

Winds continue to blow hard around the region. This wouldn't make much difference unless you are above the snow line. But we continue to see winds from 20-40mph.

With increased warming today and continued precipitation on a very weak slab avalanche danger remains HIGH today. Both Natural and Human Triggered avalanches likely on all aspects.

Terrain selection is key today as we continue to see slopes cleaning. Any slopes that have not already slid remain suspect.

Here is a link to a video on how to perform the propagation saw test.

https://vimeo.com/28264408