Wind Slabs
- Hochgebirge
- Waldgrenze
- Unterhalb der Waldgrenze
- Wahrscheinlichkeit
- Likely
- Größe
- 1
New snow and strong southwest winds today means another round of wind slab formation on wind-loaded N-NE-E aspects and cross-loaded NW and SE aspects in near and above treeline terrain. The size of the wind slabs that form on these leeward slopes will depend on the amount of new snow that accumulates. Wind slab avalanches could involve enough snow to bury or injure a person and some may entrain more snow in the most heavily wind-loaded areas. These wind slabs may form faster than they can bond to the existing snow surfaces and human-triggered wind slab avalanches should become likely today with some natural wind slab avalanches becoming possible.
Use clues like recent avalanches, shooting cracks, cornices above slopes, blowing snow, ripples, drifted snow, hollow sounding snow, or other wind created surface textures to identify where wind slabs may exist and avoid those areas.