Northern New Mexico

Hard stiff slabs on the surface that formed from the latest round of strong winds now cap an overall weak shallow faceted snowpack near and above treeline. Triggering a persistent slab avalanche remains possible at these elevations. Hard slabs tend to break in unpredictable ways often times well above you.  Any persistent slab avalanche may be large enough to bury, injure, or kill a person. Avoid terrain steeper than 35 degrees in areas where you find stiff cohesive slabs over weak faceted snow.

Strong winds from 12/22-23 that were blowing in the 80's have done some damage to the skiing and riding conditions as well as produced hard stiff slabs on the surface on most slopes near and above treeline.  It's been pretty evident with a lack of traffic in the backcountry recently that conditions aren't all that great.  With this latest round of wind, pine bows are strewn about at lower elevations with breakable crusts and hard stiff slabs on the surface.  With these highly variable conditions, the biggest challenge might be not injuring your knee.

If you do find yourself out there, it's a good chance that you'll find a hard supportable surface that will feel hollow and may appear smooth and lens-shaped.  We were finding these hard slabs to be 5 - 15 cm thick but might be thicker on East facing slopes and in cross-loaded gullies above treeline.  These slabs will feel good underfoot, but the concerns are what lies underneath.  Overall, it's a shallow snowpack with several layers of facets that have not been strengthening over these last two weeks of high pressure. Recent winds have also reintroduced slabs on many slopes that previously had not had them, making for all the ingredients we need for a slab avalanche again.  These hard slabs may be stubborn to trigger but have the potential to propagate far distances if you find the sweet spot typically where the slabs thinnest. 

Below treeline and in wind-sheltered areas near treeline we have a shallow faceting snowpack that lacks a cohesive slab. With warming today it's not out of the realm of possibility that a small point release on a steep solar aspect might be able to entrain the weak cohesionless snow creating a larger avalanche that could easily push you around into trees or into a terrain trap.  

It's probably not too early to start thinking about our next storm coming in on Monday. We have a very scary set-up as these stiffer slabs on the surface may be able to support the added weight of this incoming storm and may provide a good bed surface for the new snow.  These last two weeks of high pressure, cold temperatures, and an overall shallow snowpack have not helped strengthen the weak faceted layers. Before this latest wind event, the top 20 cm's of the snowpack was faceting. This helped ease the avalanche conditions as many slabs from the 12/10-12 storm were deteriorating and weakening. This weak snow is now another buried faceted layer just below the stiff surface slab.   Unfortunately, we haven't been able to turn the corner this year with a below-average shallow snowpack.   We should see these faceted weak layers become a bigger problem once we add a load potentially early next week!