Northern New Mexico

A dangerous persistent slab setup can be found on Northwest through East aspects above treeline, where slabs up to several feet deep sit on top of very weak layers of facets and depth hoar.  Moving slightly down in elevation, the slabs are more diminished but you could still find the right slab/weak layer combination on some slopes.  Any avalanche of this variety could break widely and deeply, taking with it most of the season's snowpack and being easily large enough to bury or injure you.

With temperatures climbing higher today than they have all season, wet loose activity will become prominent on aspects with snow and solar exposure as well as lower-elevation northerly terrain.  Look out for roller balls and pinwheels to indicate that the snow surface is becoming really wet and that it's time to head to a shadier aspect or back to your car.  Some areas will see an overlap between these two problems, where wet snow releases could step down into deeper weak layers.

The month of February continues to bring it's fair share of extremes to our Southwestern mountain regime.  2 weeks of drought were followed by a week of snowstorms and some very strong to extreme winds.  And immediately afterwards, a week of genuinely hot weather with the warmest days still yet to come.  Today could be the first of the season where it breaks 50 degrees at 10,000 feet, a rare phenomenon to occur to occur in February, and the weekend highs look a few degrees hotter.

The snowpack this winter has been dominated by two themes: shallow and weak.  The last cycle of storms formed an incremental loading pattern, and with the strong winds accompanying it ended up forming the most significant slabs that we've seen all season on top of our weak shallow snowpack.  This setup led to many large natural and human triggered avalanches last weekend, with the biggest slides occurring above treeline.  Despite the warming trend over the last week, these upper elevation slopes continue to prove that they are reactive, and we saw another large natural persistent slab avalanche occur yesterday on an ENE slope on Kachina Peak.  This problem will continue to drive dangerous conditions on northerly and East aspects at upper elevations today, which are also unfortunately where a lot of the decent skiing and riding remain.  Cracking and collapsing may not be present everywhere as you push into the alpine, so stick to conservative planning and decision-making if you're heading into these areas.

Lower down in areas near and below treeline, the snowpack has been taking a lot of heat this week and the slabs are starting to melt and deteriorate.  Wet loose activity will ramp up today with rapidly warming temperatures, direct sunlight, and easing winds.  These smaller avalanches will also affect more of our northerly terrain today with temperatures getting so high.  We haven't seen a whole lot of percolation deep in the snowpack just yet despite several days of superficial refreezes this week, but the threat of wet slabs is looming.  The mountains saw a decent refreeze last night, which has slowed that percolation and should mostly shield off this issue for another day.  However, with unusually high temperatures today, there's a chance that percolation could push deeper and destabilize the snowpack on a slope that harbors a slab by late afternoon.  Aspects with siginificant solar exposure near treeline are where you'll want to look out for this if you happen to be out there far into the afternoon.  A simple heuristic for this particular instability is if you step out of your skis or boards and are immediately able to punch through heavier snow near the surface all the way to your hip or to the ground.

This warm weather has wreaked havoc on a lot of the lower elevation snow in our range and is making it difficult to get started at many trailheads as well as leading to wet and sticky travel conditions by mid-morning.  It might be a better time to pursue other outdoor activities, but if you are getting out today it's a good idea to start and finish early, sticking to shadier slopes as much as possible.  Again, many of the most enticing slopes that have held decent conditions during the warmup are also the most problematic right now, so make and stick to a plan where you minimize your exposure to these dangerous upper elevation slopes.