Thick, wet snow heightens avalanche risk in the Cascades
SEATTLE - According to the Northwest Avalanche Center, the risk of avalanches is high in most of the Cascades. A piece of the mountain range spanning from Skagit County to nearly the Oregon border received a level 4 rating. This indicates both natural and human-triggered events are likely.
Avalanche Meteorologist Robert Hahn says after November’s dry spell, it was almost as though a switch flipped on Thursday.
"We’ve gone through a dry November to a very active weather pattern," said Hahn. "Over the last 24 – 48 hours, that snow has gotten more intense and also denser."
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Hahn warns the snow everyone is playing on now is unstable. Particularly steeper slopes.
"The early season snowpack was quite weak. So, as we add this snowpack quite rapidly on top of weak underlying snowpack. The snowpack just can’t adjust to that load," said Hahn. "You really don’t want to be at the wrong place at the wrong time during those periods of intense loading."
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