Northern New Mexico

New snow and wind overnight will make triggering a soft storm slab avalanche likely near and above treeline. Storm slabs have formed on top of crusts and slick wind pressed surfaces and may not be bonding well to this old snow surface. A smaller storm slab avalanche has the potential to step down into deeper weak layers creating a larger and more destructive avalanche. The most dangerous slopes will be found on north and east aspects where shallow buried weak layers exist. Avoid being on or connected to slopes over 30 degrees, paying attention to obvious signs of instability like shooting cracks and loud audible whumpfs as these are indications that you've found unstable snow.

Winter's not done with us yet, as a storm entered our region last night, dropping 6 to 10 inches of snow and 0.3 - 0.4" of snow water equivalent (SWE). An additional 2 to 4 inches of snow is forecasted through midday, but latest model runs are showing more snow to our east and the Santa Fe zone during the day. Winds overnight have been in the 10 to 20 mph range, with gusts in the low 30's out of the North and East. With the upslope component with this storm, snow totals might vary greatly depending on elevation and what part of the zone you're in. 

It won't take much wind to drift this low-density snow into a soft slab, but there is some uncertainties as to how reactive these slabs will be today. In more wind sheltered steep terrain where you don't find a slab, you may get long-running dry loose snow avalanches on the slick surfaces underneath. 

The birds are chirping, grass is growing and all signs point to spring, but our snowpack and especially our weak layers continue to remain cold, dry and still weak in the shallow snowpack we have for this time of year. New snow will continue to stress these persistent weak layers, and in particular faceted crusts and depth hoar that remains only 1 to 4 feet below the snow surface. After a long dry period from November till the end of January, we've had two "significant" storms, each one producing natural avalanches. This latest storm will be adding some more incremental loading to the storm on Tuesday that brought 4 to 7 inches of snow and continued wind loading from Thursday. Although none of these systems have brought a ton of weight at once the totality of 10 to 17 inches of snow 0.7-0.9" of SWE and periods of strong wind are all adding up and stressing weak layers. The most dangerous slopes will face north and east at upper elevations, Below treeline northerly facing slopes will also be suspect as these slopes have easy to impact depth hoar (1 to 2 feet below the snow surface).  

Very strong winds on Thursday, have pressed the snow into hard slabs and may be able to hold more weight than what we have below treeline. Although these slopes may be able to hold more weight, they'll be primed for a skier or rider to get these weak layers to collapse and trigger a persistent slab avalanche. Shooting cracks and loud audible whumpfs are signs of unstable snow, but my recommendation would be to assume any slope you get on has this poor snowpack structure of strong over weak until proven otherwise. Chances are you'll be hard-pressed not to find it, so you'll have to think about the consequences if you were to trigger an avalanche before commiting to a slope. 

The one thing you can turn to when we have conditions like this, is to dial back your terrain selection. Sticking to slopes under 30 degrees without steep slopes above you will help keep you safe and manage the avalanche conditions. It's been a tough winter for all of us, and although it might feel like spring, our snowpack is still very much in early season form with easy to impact weak layers near the ground. Fight the urge to chase powder on steep terrain as hopefully we'll have a big spring and eventually turn to greenlight conditions. But we definitely don't have that right now.