Due to the elevated winds that have accompanied this front, you'll likely find new and developing slabs of wind drifted snow at the upper elevations, and some mid-elevation sub ridges as well. As the winds continue to blow, these slabs will become more firm and more cohesive. This can allow you to travel out farther onto the slope before it breaks, and can fail larger and wider than expected. Winds have mostly been blowing from the south, southwest, but look for drifting on all aspects which can be loaded from the tops of ridges or across the sides of ridges.

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The new snow issue is generally simple today, as the snowfall totals increases, the avalanche danger is going to increase as well. As of 5 AM roughly 1-4" inches of new snow has fallen throughout the Wasatch range and the front is predicted to have multiple periods of high snowfall rates this morning. This new snow is going to have a variety of excellent bed surfaces to slide on and I expect to see shallow new snow avalanches in the backcountry today.

Beyond this ongoing storm, we have had a lot of snow over the last few weeks and there are areas where we are finding decomposing stellar crystals, buried ice crusts, rime crusts, and isolated areas of faceted snow buried 1-3' from the surface and it's a good reminder that strange weather (like above average snowfall, and rain on snow) leads to strange avalanches. There is also a possibility of triggering an isolated slab avalanche on a new/old snow interface that is buried 1-3' from the surface. The solar aspects, particularly southeasterly facing slopes are acting more like a northerly aspect.

Keep the ice tools stowed: Surprisingly, there is still some ice climbing to be had across northern Utah but these crags will be very dangerous. The heavy precipitation this morning could trigger wet loose avalanches to run down the gullies and down the ice flows.