Northern New Mexico

New snow and strong to extreme winds will create dangerous avalanche conditions near and above treeline as you are likely to trigger a wind slab avalanche. The most dangerous slopes will be on northerly and east aspects, where newly formed slabs rest on top of weak facets and depth hoar deeper down in the snowpack. Wind slabs may appear pillow like or smooth or round. There's a possibility of smaller wind slab avalanches stepping down into deeper weak layers creating a larger more destructive avalanche that could take with it most of the season's snowpack.  Watch for shooting cracks and collapsing, as these are signs of unstable snow. You can find safer slopes in wind sheltered areas that are less than 30 degrees today that doesn't have steep slopes above you.

Snow started falling in the early morning hours as this quick hitting storm has brought 4 to 6 inches of snow with 0.55" of snow water equivalent (SWE) in a couple of hours as we saw some intense 1 to 2 inch an hour snowfall rates.   Snowfall is expected to stop this morning, but we could pick up an additional 1 to 3 inches of snow. The bigger thing is that winds are going to be ramping up into the afternoon, with gusts expected to reach 80 mph. This could bring downed trees and make travel difficult with blizzard like conditions today. 

Early reports this morning are of natural avalanches on the leeward sides of ridgelines that likely ran early this morning during the intense snowfall and strong winds. With continued winds and snow today, we should see more natural avalanches. 

If you are going to brave the wind and get out today, the most obvious avalanche problem will be wind slabs, as strong winds will continue to drift snow into stiffer cohesive slabs. Most of these slabs will be found at upper elevations, but in open and exposed northerly areas below treeline, we could see some wind slab development. With such strong winds, if snow isn't being blown into Oklahoma, slopes could be loading further down mid-path. Expect wind slabs to build into 1 to 2 foot slabs on the leeward sides or ridgelines and cross-loaded terrain features.     

It probably sounds like a broken record at this point, but the snowpack is still shallow, with facets and depth hoar that are 1 to 3 feet below the surface. These persistent weak layers are living up to their name this year, as this depth hoar has been with us all season. This isn't a "big", significant storm, but it is continued loading to last week's snow and wind and will be stressing these deeper buried layers. At upper elevations, hard slabs and crusts on west and east aspects will be able to hold more of a load, and may take you hitting a shallower spot where the overlying slab is thinner.   

North facing below treeline, boot penetration is pretty much all the way to ground, as slabs that formed during since the end of January have been decomposing and faceting. Although we're able to get propagating results in extended column tests with easy to moderate force, 2m + long PST's are producing slab fractures as we've seen slab weakening in the upper portions of the snowpack. With such strong winds with this storm, it might just take a little bit of slab formation on the surface and loading to start to see avalanches at this elevation again. 

It's just a snowpack, that's still not one to trust yet.  With a low snow year, in our wind and solar driven snow climate, snow that remained prior to this storm was mainly confined to northerly, some east and cross-loaded west aspects. This makes it difficult to fully avoid the avalanche problems right now if you want to make a turn. The one tool we do have when dangerous avalanche conditions exist is terrain selection and cautious route-finding.  Sticking to wind-sheltered slopes less than 30 degrees, avoiding having steep slopes above you, will provide the safest and best skiing and riding.