Recently formed storm slabs need time to bond and will be especially reactive to human triggering on wind stiffened slopes.
Choose conservative lines until the new snow has had time to settle and bond.
Snowfall and strong-moderate winds have formed widespread fresh storm slabs. In the alpine this problem will be most reactive where affected by wind. At treeline and below these will be most sensitive to triggering where they overlie surface hoar or a sun crust (from the recent inversion).
On Wednesday field teams observed soft storm slabs to be reactive to human triggers.
On Tuesday a widespread natural avalanche cycle occurred. Numerous natural storm slab avalanches up to size 2.5 were observed to have ran far into runout zones in the backcountry. Meanwhile artillery avalanche control in the highway corridor produced numerous size 3-3.5 avalanches moving very fast into the valley bottom.
Yesterday's storm brings recent snowfall totals to 85cm accompanied by moderate to strong winds. This storm snow has buried a layer of surface hoar in sheltered areas at treeline & below. On solar slopes the storm snow buries a suncrust.
There are no persistent weak layers in the mid or lower snowpack.
Tonight Flurries - trace. Alpine Low -11°C. Winds SW 30 km/h. Freezing level (FZL) valley bottom.
Thurs Flurries - 6cm. Alpine High -11°C. Winds W 35-55km/h. FZL 500m.
Fri Scattered flurries - 5cm. Alpine high -8°C. Winds SW 40km/h. FZL 900m.
Sat Sun & cloud. No precip. Alpine high -3°C. Winds SW 35km/h. FZL 1100m.
