Soft wind slabs are present at immediate ridge top and their lee features.
Persistent weak layers may be triggered from shallow, rocky areas. 'Whumpfing' is a clue that you're tapping into these layers of concern.
5-10cm of snow and moderate Southerly winds Sunday night into Monday formed fresh wind slab in the alpine and into the tree line. If triggered these wind slabs could step down to deeper instabilities.
30-60cm of settled snow buries the Dec 23 facet interface. This layer will be a concern in thin rocky areas, on convex rolls, or in areas where the snowpack is unsupported.
The Nov 17 layer, down 60-120cm, consists of facets, a rotting crust in some locations, and decomposing surface hoar. Though becoming less likely to trigger, the resulting avalanche would be quite destructive.
No human-triggered nor natural avalanches have been reported in the last few days.
5-10cm of new snow has freshened up the surface. This sits on a settled, in some places wind-affected, upper snowpack.
The December 23rd facet interface is down ~60cm and appears to be gaining strength, but remains a concern in shallow snowpack areas.
The November 17th facet/crust/surface hoar layer is down ~100cm and has become less reactive in snowpack tests, though when it does fail it is 'sudden' in character.
Isolated flurries continue to get burped over from the Pacific, but not amounting to much snow here.
Tues: sun and cloud, trace snow, Alp high -6*C, 1100m FZL, light SE winds
Wed: sun and cloud, Alp high -4*C, 1200m FZL, light to moderate S winds
Thurs: flurries, 10-15cm snow, Alp high -3*C, 1600m FZL, moderate SW winds
