Turnagain Pass Avalanche Forecast

Things are slowly warming up as we continue this gradual transition into spring. We received another 2-4″ of dense snow this week near Girdwood and Turnagain Pass, which wasn’t really enough to make for any major avalanche concerns. For now, we are starting to approach the mountains with a springtime diurnal mindset. This means we can expect generally stable conditions in the morning– as long as we get a solid refreeze overnight. Then, as things heat up in the afternoon, we should anticipate loose wet avalanches, along with smaller chances of wet slabs as the snow continues to warm up. We’ve also been seeing more and more glide activity over the past few weeks, and will continue to see glide avalanches for the days and weeks to come.

At this point, we have seen widespread wet loose activity and quite a few glide avalanches release, but we have yet to see a big wet slab cycle. Once we start seeing consecutive  nights without a refreeze, we will be on alert for the potential for bigger wet slabs. Until that happens, we will be watching for surface problems in the afternoon, and keeping an eye out for lingering pockets of unstable snow on high elevation northerly aspects, which still harbor dry snow.

With partly to mostly cloudy skies and little to no wind or precipitation expected through the weekend, we are not expecting a major change for the next few days. The wildcard will be the potential for warmer, cloudy nights, which may increase the likelihood for larger wet avalanches if we go multiple days without surfaces freezing. It is always difficult to nail down the timing for that transition, but you can expect increasing danger as soon as you start sinking up to the top of your boots in wet snow. If we continue to see temperatures getting cold enough to lock up the surface overnight, that springtime diurnal mindest will be the name of the game until we get our next major weather event, which is currently looking to be in the form of a significant storm starting Monday and continuing through Tuesday.

End of Season Operations: This will be our final conditions update for the season. We will issue our Springtime Tips on Monday, May 8, and will continue to publish public observations as they come in. Thank you to all of you who supported the avalanche center through observations, field days, donations, and to all of our professional partners. It’s been another great season, and we can’t wait to do it all again next year!

Wet snow avalanches on the front side of Seattle Ridge. These have been happening for a couple weeks now, and we’re getting to the point where it is hard to tell what is fresh and what is older. 05.05.2023

Debris from loose wet, wet slab, and glide avalanche on the south faces of Eddie’s and Shark’s Fin. 05.05.20203