The National Weather Service Forecasts-

TODAY...RAIN. HIGHS AROUND 40. EAST WIND 10 TO 20 MPH.

TONIGHT...RAIN. LOWS AROUND 35. EAST WIND 10 TO 20 MPH.

TUESDAY...RAIN...HEAVY AT TIMES. HIGHS AROUND 39. SOUTHEAST WIND 5 TO 15 MPH.

Tempeatures rose by 7c over the last 4 days and 4c degrees over the last 48 hours. Temps went above freezing at the Mt Roberts Tram Weather Station yesterday morning around 10am.

Precip rates have been moderate over the last few days with 40mm (1.6\") in the last 72 hours. 1\" of which came in the last 48 hours and .66\" of which came in the last 30 hours. You can see precipitation rates are slowly rising.

Winds have been considerable over the last 24-48 hours blowing out of the SSE from 20-30mph. Yesterday on Douglas Island the winds picked up additionally blowing to 40 and gusting higher. This added to some windloading on NNW facing slopes only at the very upper elevations.

During the last 48 hours at the UAS Site which is located in a valley that will hold the cool air a little longer we lost only a cm or two of snow. At the Mt Roberts Tram Weather station which is located along the channel we lost a little more snow, a total of 3\" of snow over the last 48 hours.

This is a good thing getting rid of some of the mass off our lower mountain avalanche runout zones and also allowing the upper mountain to settle dramatically.

The word for the day is Warm and Wet.

We have seen substantial warming in our region over the last few days. The warming slightly preceded the precipitation and the precipitation rates rose gradually which is a good thing. If we had seen more rapid warming with higher precip volumes we would have gone into a natural avalanche cycle more quickly. This warming accompanied by moderate precip rates has given the snowpack a little time to settle and develop drainage channels at lower elevations to help process the greater precipitation rates to come. This is not the case for the upper mountain just yet. We have been seeing freezing rains so there is still a need for drainage channels to establish.

The NWS forecast calls for as much as 1.16\" of rain in the next 24 hours and 1.75\" over the next 30 hours. This is a substantial increase in precip rates.

The temperatures are forecast to stay quite warm during this event with rain on snow all the way to our mountain top starting zones and beyond.

Avalanche danger is HIGH.

Natural and human triggered avalanches likely.

I assume we will see the steep rocky sections of Mt Juneau and Mt Roberts releive themselves of snow. This has the potential to trigger deeper weak layers in the surrounding snowpack in places.

Spatial variability is HIGH in the snowpack due to the high wind events we saw a few weeks ago.

We have widespread areas of shallow snowpack that were still weak in places. I assume these will see full depth percolation rapidly an lower elevations and in areas with no anchors, on steep unsupported or convex slopes, they will releive themselves. Higher elevations will be taking more time and we may see some releases due to massive loading associated with these large volumes of precip.

The trickier question remains in the pockets of deeper snowpack. Much of our deeper snowpack has been fairly stable. Should these areas develop drainage channels they may hang in there ok. But between now stress is being continually added. If these areas are under steep sections that releive themselves they too may be triggered or entrained (Incorporated and swept along its flow) due to the lack of freezing which creates poor bonds.

This has the potential to develop fairly good sized avalanches which would be our current worst case scenario.

This is especially a concern on our steeper longer avalanche paths such as Chop Gulley above the Flume Trail and Snowslide Creek above Thane Road.

Please avoid spending time in avalanche zones today. Do not hike the Flume Trail. Do not park or walk along Thane Road. Minimize your danger by minimizing your time in avalanche terrain.

Do not walk the trails above the Berhands neighborhood as well.

I expect at some point over the next 24-36 hours we will see some natural avalanche activity.

There will be a one day FREE avalanche awareness class with companion rescue training held at Eaglecrest on Sunday January 20th from 9-4pm.

This class will teach you to identify avalanche terrain, how to do weather assesments and read what that may do to avalanche stability. We will discuss snowpack layering and its relation to stability. You will learn about safe travel practices in avalanche terrain. How to dig snowpits and make stability assesments for yourself. How to use your avalanche rescue gear, and perform companion rescue.

To sign up for this free educational offering please call Tom @ 209-9207 or email [email protected]

We look forward to having you involved