Northern New Mexico

At upper elevations, new snow and wind have created more cohesive slabs of snow on the surface that rest on top of faceted weak snow below.  Avoid steep slopes where you find more than 8 inches of wind-drifted snow, paying attention to obvious signs of instability like shooting cracks and loud audible collapses. Any avalanche triggered has the potential to fail on or near the ground taking with it most of the season's snowpack.  At lower elevations, where the snowpack is faceted and cohesionless from top to bottom, it's possible to get loose snow avalanches that gouge near the ground in steep terrain.  

6 - 8 inches of snow has fallen over the last couple of days with about 0.45" of Snow Water Equivalent (SWE).  Outside of strong winds during the initial impulse on Thursday, we've only seen light winds in a NW flow.  Lingering snow showers today will only bring light flurries (0 -1 inches).  Winds are expected to pick up around mid-day as winds shift to the west and eventually the SW tonight ahead of a more potent storm system that enters NM this evening.  

The main avalanche concern for today is where low-density snow on the surface may be drifted into more sensitive slabs. With winds expected to pick up, it won't take much to drift snow at the upper elevations into more cohesive slabs that rest on top of weak faceted snow below.  Triggering an avalanche may fail at the old snow faceted interface or be triggered on a deeper faceted weak layer or depth hoar near the ground as our snowpack is still shallow enough to impact these layers.  Instead of differentiating the problem, the mindset should be the same that an avalanche is going to fail on a deeper buried persistent weak layer.  

Generally safe avalanche conditions exist on most slopes as we simply do not have slab.  The shallow ( 2 - 3 foot) snowpack has been continuing to weaken and facet and become cohesionless over the last period of high pressure. This low-density snow that has fallen with no wind sits on top of facets and depth hoar that makeup the entire snowpack.  The biggest hazard continues to remain hitting rocks, stumps and downed trees as ski penetration is nearly to the ground. In steep terrain, you may be able to trigger a loose snow avalanche that entrains and gouges all the way down to the ground. These are usually typically harmless, but in consequential terrain, could knock you off your feet and take you over a cliff.     

We've slowly been loading our slopes with low-density snow and a little under .5" of SWE. This hasn't done much to change our overall avalanche danger as we haven't added much weight and still don't have continuous slabs across most of our terrain. What we do have are widespread weak layers from depth hoar to facets in shallow snowpack across most aspects and elevations that will become more reactive when we introduce more weight and a continuous slab.  With a more potent storm system bringing snow and strong wind tomorrow, expect the avalanche danger to be on the rise Sunday into next week.