Sluffing of the storm snow will be possible today, particularly on the steepest solar aspects as the storm snow transitions to damp and then wet with today's sun and rapidly rising temperatures. WET SLUFFS may run naturally and with provocation and will run fast/far and entrain lots of snow as they cascade down the slick Christmas Eve rain crust (CERC!). Pinwheels, rollerballs, and natural sluffs are clear signs you've started to overstay your welcome and it's time to change aspects.

DRY SLUFFS (aka Dry Point Releases) are also possible in the low density storm snow in very steep terrain. Again, the rain crust is the compounding issue as the loose snow wants to run fast and far on the slick crusts.

There is a persistent weak layer (PWL) of weak, faceted snow and depth hoar down near the ground on northerly-facing aspects, primarily in the mid and upper elevations. Matt Barry's photo from yesterday shows the poor structure and Sunday's avalanche on Sunset Peak in the Alta/Brighton backcountry, failed on this PWL.

Dealing with a PWL is already tricky business, and now the Christmas Rain Crust further complicates things as the crust may be strong enough on some slopes to support the recent load of new and wind-drifted snow, while other slopes may have a thinner crust where a rider may be able to affect the PWL and trigger an avalanche up to two feet deep and over a hundred feet wide. Ski cuts are notoriously ineffective tools at mitigating this problem as they often allow you to get well onto a slope before triggering an avalanche that propagates above you; existing tracks on a slope are also not an indication of stability (there are plenty of tracks adjacent to the Sunset Peak slide.)

On Friday, the UAC staff worked with the snow safety team at Powder Mountain, and in this video, Brooke Maushaund describes the situation of the snowpack ahead of the Saturday storm that left additional snow above the PWL.