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Forecast for the Skyline Area Mountains

Brett Kobernik
Issued by Brett Kobernik on
Monday morning, December 18, 2023
Overall, the avalanche danger on the Skyline is LOW.
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Weather and Snow
Current Conditions: The snowpack remains shallow and is becoming weaker as more days pass without new snow. On Sunday Chris Magerl was prowling around near Electric Lake on skis and wrote up an excellent description of his take on the current snowpack. DETAILS HERE. It's interesting to note that he experienced some collapsing (whoomping) of the snowpack.
High pressure continues to dominate our region. High temperatures were again in the upper 30s to low 40s on Sunday. A temperature inversion has been keeping the higher terrain warmer than the lower terrain during the nights. Last night temperatures hovered around freezing in the higher terrain with lows in the 20s and even teens in the canyon bottoms. Wind speeds have been light.
Mountain Weather: It's going to be another warm day today with highs around 40˚F and mostly cloudy skies. Wind from the southwest will be a little breezier than it has been. It should increase to moderate speeds today. The weather looks a little messy throughout the week with some very minor chances for light snowfall. As for longer term, the weather models are really all over the place. One day they indicate lots of water, the next day it's gone. They are now back to hinting at a storm on Christmas Eve. It doesn't look like a large storm and with how the models have been flip flopping, I expect this to change over the next few days.
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Avalanche Problem #1
Normal Caution
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Description
While the snowpack is becoming quite weak, it remains mostly stable right now. The weak snow isn't currently an issue. It definitely has the potential to become an issue once we add more layers of snow on top of it.
As for now, the chances for triggering an avalanche are low.
General Announcements
This forecast is from the U.S.D.A. Forest Service, which is solely responsible for its content. This forecast describes general avalanche conditions and local variations always occur.