Avalanches will be unlikely on Wednesday. Don't throw caution to the wind though; use safe travel techniques and pay attention to changes in the snow you are traveling through. Very isolated slopes may harbor unstable snow if Strong southerly winds are able to redistribute any snow to north facing slopes high in the mountains.
On Tuesday I didn't observe a Wind Slab avalanche problem. I saw very little blowing snow despite Moderate ridgeline winds. Without significant new snow in the forecast this is likely to remain the statues quo. I was tempted to leave Wind Slabs out of the forecast completely, but a wind shift from Southwest to South and increasing wind speeds has convinced me to include it (however unlikely it may be).
Tuesday was drier and colder than forecast! On my tour I found 65 cm of snow at 6800 ft. The uppermost snowpack is characterized by a variey of crusts, sometimes sandwiching a few cm. of old storm snow. The distribution of these crusts varies by elevation. The most interesting layering seems to occurr at treeline elevations and on sheltered slopes where we have sometimes been finding weak snow above or below the most prominent crust (12/22 melt-freeze crust). All of this exists in the uper 15 cm. or so of snow, so it doesn't matter much for current avalanche problems...just something interesting to check out if you are inclined, and for us to keep in mind if we ever get some significant new snow.
