Strong winds have drifted new snow into stiff drifts that now sit on top of an old weak sugary faceted snow surface. These drifts will not bond well to the old snow surface. Look for and avoid pillowy, rounded piles of snow. Shooting cracks, cornices, and collapsing are all signs of wind-drifted snow and these are areas to avoid. Drifts may appear lower on the slope and further down ridgelines than you may expect.

There are currently two buried weak layers in our snowpack. One is a layer of buried near-surface facets that formed during last week's cold clear weather. This layer will not bond well to the newest snow or recent wind drifts and expect to see sloughing and loose new snow avalanches on this layer.

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The second layer is buried near the ground. This layer was formed in December and was responsible for many large avalanches during the Holiday Avalanche Cycle. This layer will be more likely to be triggered as the storm continues and we could see avalanches 1'-3' deep. The most likely places to trigger an avalanche on this layer of buried facets are steep slopes that have a thinner snowpack, rocky gully features, and areas that previously avalanched (repeaters).

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Read more about persistent weak layer avalanches HERE.

With base building snow falling yesterday followed up by rain and above average temperatures today be on the look for and avoid wet loose avalanches in mid and lower elevation terrain. These will most likely occur in steep rocky gully features and may not be enough to bury you, but combined with buried facets near the ground there is an off chance of a lower elevation wet avalanche that breaks out more as a slab avalanche. Any dry snow avalanche that trenches down to wet snow would be bigger and have more mass. Stay off of slopes where you start to sink through the snowpack to the ground with your skis or board.

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