Gunnison

A couple of inches of new snow today won't change the LOW danger.   Avalanche hazards are small and most threatening in extreme terrain.  Stay alert for thin pockets of wind drifted snow in the alpine.  In the glades, you can trigger shallow sluffs that could cause harm in terrain traps or long-running gullies.  Ride defensively in high-consequence terrain.  

We're expecting 3" or less out of today's storm, which won't change the danger.  If we get surprised by more than 6" of new snow, expect the hazard to increase to Moderate to account for increasing size and distribution of surface instabilities.  

There are several weak layers near the snow surface that formed during our dry January weather.  These layers aren't posing a threat without an overlying slab, which is the case for almost all of our avalanche terrain right now.  On some high elevation, wind drifted terrain features, thin slabs have formed in the past week from small amounts of snow and wind (See video).  You are most likely to encounter a soft slab instability on a northerly facing slope near and above treeline. That's where all the right ingredients might come together to form an isolated instability:  a freshly drifted slab that didn't get cooked by sun last weekend, and a facet layer below it that has survived the sun and wind this month.  The handful of slabs that we have observed this week have all been thin (less than 10") and small in size,  (example A, example B, example C), but they could have consequences in the wrong type of terrain.   It's something to monitor for if you are riding extreme terrain above cliffs, in couloirs, or on big faces.  In wind-protected terrain on the northern half of the compass, the upper snowpack remains soft and cohesionless, lacking any slab.  In very steep terrain, you can initiate shallow sluffs that entrain both the new snow and weak faceted snow below.  Pay attention to your sluffs if you are riding sustained steep pitches or in gullies, like these sluffs in Climax Chutes.

On steep southerly aspects, you'll most commonly find dust on crust conditions.  There are no avalanche hazards there, but a slip and fall in steep terrain can send you down the slope. Plan accordingly.