Northwest Mountains

The avalanche danger is Low this morning and is expected to rise to Moderate at higher elevations through the day as strengthening winds form fresh wind slabs.  Noteworthy blowing snow will alert you to changing conditions and increasing avalanche hazard.  Apart from minor sluffing, avalanche conditions are generally stable and safe in wind-protected terrain.  

Observations yesterday suggest that wind slab formation from Sunday night's system is fairly limited and becoming stubborn to triggers.  In most terrain early this morning, you'll find 2" to 8" of soft, wind-protected powder. The soft powder on the surface, which is most abundant in the Northwest Mountains, is easily transportable by increasing west-to-northwest winds over the next 12 hours.  Once winds reach sufficient speeds to mix into the terrain holding wind protected snow, they'll start drifting it into fresh wind slabs.  This could happen today in some terrain, and will likely expand to more terrain after sunset as stronger winds accompany this evening's cold front.  You can identify changing conditions by watching for blowing snow in your travels.   This will be a relatively small and easy-to-recognize instability.  

In stark contrast to the small and easy-to-recognize wind slab problem, persistent slabs remain a low-likelihood but high-consequence threat in the shallower parts of the Southeast Mountains.  If you are riding in terrain where snow depths average less than about 5 feet (150 cm), take the time to assess the snowpack structure before riding in steep terrain.  Evidence of the lingering problem comes from a close call last Wednesday, just outside of our forecast area on Park Cone, and unstable pit results over the weekend on a shallow, windward slope near treeline by Gothic.  As we continue to distance ourselves from the last major loading event, which ended on January 31st, the threat of avalanches breaking on buried depth hoar layers continues to gradually diminish.