Quick report
What a joy to have new snow! Excellent turns in many places this week! Shady slopes are the simplest, but also the most likely place to trigger slides. A thin, soft slab sits on well-developed facets at 2/8 interface; all observed avalanches have required some wind stiffening. This wind happened during the early bit of the storm, and evidence of wind loading is mostly masked by subsequent snowfall. Multiple recent rounds of SH growth occurred this week, observed up to above 10,000'. Snow surface is faceting. Complexity increases wrapping around to solar slopes. Currently, I haven't observed a stability issue on solars (beyond wet snow on warm/sunny days), but there is a concerning set of recent crusts and facets at/near the surface. More details on all of this in snowpack section. No cracking, no collapsing, no avalanches triggered.
Snowpack
Initially had around a foot or a bit more of new snow here, has settled to 8-10" on shady middle elevation slopes and cooked down to 4-5" on sunny slopes. I've been spending a lot of time looking at (and skiing through) surfaces, in anticipation of additional loading. Complexity in upper snowpack is increasing. Main recent weather and snowpack events creating complexity: -2/8 surface is buried (this is our January drought surface). Storm started warm and wet with wind, ended cold and dry and calm -2/10 radiation recrystallization crusts are formed (SW-S-SE, on top of storm snow, above the 2/8 surface) -2/11 storms shallowly buries 2/10 crust+facet combo -2/11 overnight into 2/12, 4-8mm SH grows -2/12 generates another round of radrx crusts above 2/10 radrx crusts (SW-S-SE) -2/12 overnight into 2/13, another round of 4-8mm SH grows SURFACE HOAR: A low stratus deck helped build a widespread layer of 4-8mm surface hoar overnight (2/11 to 2/12). No SH on valley floor, but it started a few hundred feet above and went to over 10,000'. Another round of 4-8mm SH formation overnight 2/12 to 2/13, extending down to valley floor and to over 10,000'. Sun cooked these layers down on solar slopes on 2/12 and 2/13, but they are standing upright on shaded slopes. SOLAR CRUST+FACETS: As reported previously, there was a widespread round of radiation recrystallization crust+facet generation during the day on 2/10 (the 2/10 RadRx). 2/11 brought some light additional snow, and 2/12 produced another round of RadRx crusts. On morning of 2/13, when crusts were still frozen, I could clearly make out 2 distinct crusts in the upper few inches of the snow, with faceted snow in between... a classic weak snow sandwich. I would expect this layer to produce some avalanches once significantly loaded. Variations of this layer exist at least on the southern 1/3 of the compass. Not entirely sure how this varies toward E and W, but would expect some crust+facet action going on here as well based on the weather. By the time you get to E and W the snow surface is crust free and (skiing is still quite good). This crusty mess is sitting 2-5" ish inches above the much stronger/stiffer/icier 2/8 surface that we just buried. Long story short, I'm looking around at most surfaces and not liking what I'm seeing. I'm expecting these layers to produce avalanches with sufficient additional loading.
Avalanche
Observed numerous D1.5-2 persistent slabs from the 2/9ish cycle. All failed as soft slabs in wind loaded terrain on N-NE-ENE aspects, between 9,000 and 10,000'.