While cold temperatures are helping to improve conditions, be on the lookout for wind slabs in lee areas.
Wind slabs that exist from redistribution of recent storm snow still exist in the alpine and some tree line locations. The wind slabs are sitting on a variety of surfaces like hard slabs, SH and facets.
With up to 45cm of recent storm snow, some areas may have developed a storm slab. Expect this to be more reactive in areas where the bed surface exists as a crust. Little in the way of avalanche activity has occurred with this problem as of Monday.
The cold snap will continue Tuesday with alpine temperatures as cold as -30. A warming trend and return to seasonal temps will start Wednesday. The wind will shift to the East and remain in the moderate range Tuesday into Wednesday. Little to no snow is expected for the next 3 days.
30-45 cm of recent storm snow was being redistributed into soft slabs in alpine areas on Monday. The new wind slabs could be overlying older and deeper ones from the previous wind event. The Jan 30th surface hoar/sun crust layer is variable in distribution, is 40-60 cm down and is producing hard sudden planar results in some snowpack tests.
The forecasting team observed 3 loose dry avalanches coming from extreme terrain on Mt. Ogden today. While the powder clouds were impressive, there was little mass in any of the 3 avalanches barely constituting a size 1. Additionally, the forecasting team remote triggered a size 1 wind slab on a moraine feature. See MIN for photo.
