New snow may hide buried problems. In areas with greater than 30 cm accumulation, treat the danger as HIGH.
A combination of buried surface hoar, facets, and old crust will reactivate with the addition of new snow.
This weak layer likely no longer exists on solar aspects and lower elevations, where recent warming will have destroyed it.
New snow will form reactive storm slabs, continued high winds throughout the storm may create much deeper slabs in lee areas.
There were a few size 1 to 1.5 slab avalanches reported over the weekend. These were running southwest through north aspects at treeline and in the alpine. There were also some reports of whumpfing and cracking in the Mt Cokely area.
If you are heading into the backcountry, consider posting a MIN.
New snow falls on about 15 to 30 cm of snow from the weekend. This sits on old wind-affected snow, facets or surface hoar in sheltered areas, or a melt freeze crust.
At upper elevations, wind blowing from a variety of directions has redistributed storm snow into fresh wind slabs in lee terrain.
A widespread crust, sometimes accompanied by a thin layer of weak facets, is buried 30 to 70 cm beneath predominantly low-density snow.
The mid and lower snowpack contains no other layers of concern.
Tuesday Night
Cloudy with 10 to 30 mm of mixed precipitation. 50 to 90 km/h southeast ridgetop wind. Freezing level 1300 m.
Wednesday
Cloudy with 15 to 30 mm of mixed precipitation. 50 to 90 km/h south ridgetop wind. Freezing level 1300 m
Thursday
Cloudy with up to 15 mm of mixed precipitation. 30 to 50 km/h west ridgetop wind. Freezing level 1200 m.
Friday
Cloudy with 15 to 35 cm of mixed precipitation. 50 to 90 km/h southwest ridgetop wind. Freezing level 1500 m.
More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.
