Although not much snow is expected in the Provo mountains today, any period of heavier precipitation may create shallow, sensitive storm slabs and sluffing in the low-density storm snow.

There are two persistent weak layers of concern. The most critical is the weak snow down near the ground, and this layer is most likely to produce avalanches on repeater slopes. The large slides along the Park City ridgeline on Tuesday, and the Little Water Peak slide on Monday (observation) highlight this problem. These slides were triggered from cornice falls and were on steep, wind-loaded slopes facing northeast. The photo below from Little Water highlights how large these avalanches can be.

The second layer is weak faceted snow and surface hoar that was preserved underneath the storm snow. This layer is now buried 2-4' deep, but if you dig down you can see a thin, gray stripe in the snowpack. Field observations indicate the presence and reactivity of this layer varies widely. On Monday I was finding this layer very reactive in both Silver Fork as well as the Guardsman Pass/Peak 10,420' area (observation), but yesterday in Days Draw it was difficult to identify. You are most likely to find this layer on slopes above 8000' facing northwest through east. The only way to check for this layer is to dig down 2-4' deep and search for the obvious stripe of faceted snow.

Moderate to strong winds from the south/southwest persisted for several days, drifting many mid and upper elevation slopes. Storm snow overnight and through today will cover these drifts, but today's winds from the northwest will create fresh drifts, especially at the upper elevations. Any increase in wind speeds will quickly drift the low-density snow that will fall today, creating sensitive slabs.

Additionally, cornices have grown quite large over the past several days, and are breaking back much further than expected. Be sure to give any cornices a very wide berth by not traveling anywhere close to corniced ridges.