The overall avalanche danger is LOW and triggering an avalanche is unlikely. If you're looking for trouble, you may find isolated soft or hard slabs of wind blown snow that may crack and fail in older faceted snow in the high, northerly terrain. Otherwise, your main issues will be slide-for-life conditions on the slick crusts or general trouble with thin and threadbare conditions.
There is a widespread persistent weak layer (PWL) of faceted snow on northerly-facing slopes at mid- and upper elevations. In isolated areas, you may find isolated soft or hard slabs of wind blown snow that may crack and fail in older faceted snow in the high, northerly terrain.
The last reported avalanches were on December 7th with the last significant storm.
Skies are partly cloudy in the wake of the "storm". Most areas only picked up a trace to - at most - 3" of heavy dense snow with a rough rain-snow line to 8000'. Winds are from the west, blowing 20mph with gusts to 30 and about twice that at 11,000'.
For today, skies will trend overcast with temps on a warming trend toward "freezing". The winds will ramp up out of the west by late afternoon ahead of another storm for later Friday into Saturday. This will again be wet, warm and windy with a rain-snow line hovering around 8000'. We may see 3-6 inches of new and up to 0.8" of snow-water-equivalent.
Travel and riding conditions are fairly rugged with only one to two feet of snow on the ground.
This information does not apply to developed ski areas or highways where avalanche control is normally done. This forecast is from the U.S.D.A. Forest Service, which is solely responsible for its content. This forecast describes general avalanche conditions and local variations always occur.
