Westerly winds increased overnight and should have formed slabs of wind-drifted snow this morning. Look for and avoid these fresh wind slabs under ridge lines and along cross loaded ridges.

Another reason to avoid these wind loaded areas is that they may have added just enough weight and stress to the snowpack to cause an avalanche to break on weak faceted snow near the ground. See avalanche problem #2 below.

We have a lot of uncertainty in snowpack conditions at upper elevations in the Provo area mountains. What we know is that a thick (2-3 feet) slab of snow rest on a persistent weak layer of faceted snow near the ground. This layer may be mirroring what we've seen in the Salt Lake mountains where it has become somewhat dormant, but we don't have enough data to say for sure. Steep rocky northerly facing terrain at upper elevations with an fresh load of wind drifted snow is the most likely place for an avalanche to break at the ground. Other terrain has this persistent weak layer, but it is a much thinner layer and less of an issue.