With 6-8 inches of new snow falling with this last storm, winds may have created smooth, rounded pillows of wind drifted snow are forming on a variety of old snow surfaces. While initial wind-drifted avalanches will likely be shallow, there’s potential for them to step down into the deeper, more dangerous hard slab problem, 1 to 2 feet deep, on upper elevation W-N-E facing slopes.

Outside of the wind zone, sensitive new snow instabilities may exist on all aspects. Even a small loose or soft slab avalanche could run long and far on the supportable crust, especially in steep terrain where the snow surface is smooth and continuous. With the rain and snow mix that fell, expect these to be most likely in the highest, coolest terrain above snowlines that exceeded 8000' at times.

Due to the supportability of the Christmas Eve Rain Crust (CERC) in the majority of terrain, it's unlikely that you can trigger a slab avalanche on the persistent weak layer. However, if you did, it has the potential to be a large, destructive, and potentially fatal avalanche.

Slabs running on weak snow below the CERC can range from unreactive to stubborn, however we want to stress that this does NOT mean that these are entirely off the menu if you head to just the wrong spot. The PWL is largely dependent on the supportability of the CERC above it. In higher, wind-exposed, W-N-E terrain where the snowpack may be thinner, the CERC may prove less supportable. These areas are most suspect for triggering a large slide. Some higher mid-elevation slopes fit this bill as well.