Housetop

Nice to have a refresh on the southerly aspects, and more on the way overnight. I went out with a fresh brain after reading obs from the past week (nothing appeared to be deeper than 12-16" in depth to see where on the spectrum the wind slab problem appeared to be--getting a handle on the distribution, new snow behavior, and whether things were trending PWL or not. Wind slabs under the newest snowfall were stubborn and relatively non-reactive, but I imagine in the alpine or around exposed terrain you could find pockets. Dug on a NE and a S aspect ~9,300' to take a closer look at the top meter. HS on the southerly aspect was shallow (150-160 cm) and held weak and faceted snow down 80 cm. We got a range of interesting results on the upper-pack facets, all non-propagating, and nothing really clean as the facet layer was infused with percolation columns and would not fracture cleanly. For this reason, I think due S aspects are trending better than SE or SW for deeper issues. It is worth noting, though, that any new snowfall likely move first (and easiest) on due S aspects post-storm due to the heftiest of crusts being present there.  The N aspect held weaker snow down 30 cm (a mix of lighter-density snow and probably very small facets) which remained the primary obvious layer of concern and likely the culprit of many avalanches of the past week. I expect avalanche problems tomorrow, dependent on overnight totals and wind amounts to trend storm/wind.