Steady ridgeline winds are forecast for the day, which will blow the low density snow into sensitive drifts or wind slabs. With faster wind speeds, these drifts will be more widespread than yesterday. Mountain terrain channels the wind in odd ways, so look for these soft to medium, rounded wind slabs or drifts on a variety of aspects and elevations. They will be on the lee sides of ridge crests and around terrain features, like gully walls, sub ridges and down into open bowls at both the mid and upper elevations. Lingering drifts from yesterday’s strange southeasterly winds hidden beneath the snow.

Out of the wind affected terrain, new snow sluffs and a few cracky soft slabs can be triggered on steep slopes of all aspects. Consequences are important - even a small sluff can be serious if it takes you into trees, off a cliff or for a long ride.

The small storms are sneaking up on us - in the last week, upper elevations in the Cottonwoods have had up to 2 feet of snow, with over 1.5” of water and the Park City side about a foot of snow containing an inch of water. There have been 2 skier triggered slides in the last 4 days breaking near ground on the weak, sugary faceted snow. Both were on slopes with old faceted October snow near the ground and that had a shallow snowpack because they avalanched already this winter (know as “repeaters”.

The old faceted, sugary October snow layer is most widespread on upper elevations northwest, north, northeast and easterly facing terrain. Slopes with a shallow snow pack, less than about a meter deep, included “repeater” slopes in the core Cottonwoods zone, upper-elevation alpine terrain that was wind-scoured, as well as traditionally thinner snowpack areas such as the Park City ridgeline and Millcreek Canyon.