Northern New Mexico

Dangerous avalanche conditions exist throughout the mountains as cohesive slabs up to several feet thick sit on top of a weak, faceted snowpack. The most dangerous slopes will be near and above treeline on northerly and east aspects, as well as cross-loaded terrain features. You can trigger an avalanche near the surface in wind-drifted snow, but the bigger concern is avalanches stepping down into deeper weak layers, creating larger and more destructive slides.  Sticking to more sheltered and lower-angled terrain will provide safer riding options. 

Yesterday's snowstorm outproduced those earlier in the week, adding about 9-11 inches of low-density snow on top of what we saw already and leading to some excellent skiing and riding.  No single one of these storms over the past week has been a huge wallop, but in totality it's a decent amount of moisture beginning with the Valentine's Day storm:  19-25" of snow with about 1.6-1.95" of SWE.  This is enough weight to make it easier than it's been to collapse and overstress our drought weak layers, and we also have another major component for large avalanches: a slab.  The Southwest winds over the last week have been strong, drifting the new snow and compacting it into thicker and more cohesive slabs up to 2 or 3 feet thick that extend widely across a lot of slopes.  Today, it will likely just take you traveling over that slab to collapse one of our weak layers and produce a large avalanche. 

The most dangerous slopes at the moment are near and above treeline, where the slabs are larger and more consistent across the slope.  A faceted weak layer that formed during the early February dry period got buried during the Valentines Day storm.  Slab avlanches are perhaps easiest to trigger on this layer but they could also gouge down into depth hoar near the ground and send most of the season's snowpack downhill.  Persistent slab avalanches like this would be the biggest of the season and easily big enough to injure or bury you.  Yesterday during the storm, we weren't able to get much visibility in these areas but we'd expect that some natural avalanches occurred during peak instability sometime in the morning.  It's in your best interest to proceed in these areas with a lot of caution today, looking actively for red flags like big shooting cracks and loud audible collapses before going anywhere near avalanche terrain.  Even a smaller wind slab release or a loose snow sluff could easily step down and lead to a big and destructive slide.

Below treeline, it's a little bit of a different story as these cohesive slabs are harder to find.  Winds over the last two days have been upsloping and stripping many areas in the woods and depositing it on others.  We mainly traveled in these areas yesterday during the storm and found this to be the case in real time: there just wasn't as much slab formation.  That said, you could definitely still find a dangerous setup below treeline, which encompasses a large section of our mountains up to about 12,000 feet some places.  Open and exposed, steep terrain is where you're most likely to find it, so do your due diligence and look for a strong-over-weak setup as you approach these areas before hopping into them.

Skiing and riding conditions have greatly improved, but that's also come with increased avalanche danger.  The same storms we've seen this week have created dangerous avalanche conditions throughout much of the west.  There have been 3 deadily accidents in the United States over the last few days.  One in California and two in Utah.  Go in with a conservative mindset today, sticking to more sheltered and lower angle terrain, and avoiding steep slopes above you.