Drifting of Sunday's fresh snow from sustained and strengthening south winds overnight created heightened wind slab avalanche conditions, mainly at upper elevations, and pockets of dangerous conditions may develop in exposed terrain. You could trigger stiff wind slabs and/or cornice falls in steep drifted upper elevation terrain today. Watch for and avoid stiffer wind deposited snow on the lee side of major ridges and in and around terrain features like sub-ridges, cliff bands, and steep walled gullies. Ridge top cornices might break further back than expected, and cornice falls could trigger more dangerous slab avalanches on steep slopes below.

Isolated persistent slab avalanches up to around 2-and-a-half feet deep, failing on weak sugary faceted snow or basal layer depth hoar are possible in outlying areas with shallow and poor snow structure. I'm not a fan of the inevitable spring warm-up, which could increase the danger of triggered persistent slab avalanches due to increased creep rates in the upper layers of the snowpack and/or softening of existing hard slab layers. The added weight from this week's drifted snow and/or rain also might be enough to activate buried dormant weak layers in some areas, and dangerous triggered avalanches are a possibility we just can't ignore. Whumpfing is a significant red flag indicating potential persistent slab instability.

Solar warming and green-housing from clouds trapping solar heat will increase the danger of loose wet avalanches at lower elevations and on sunny mid and upper elevation slopes, and you are likely to trigger moist or wet sluffs if you venture on steep slopes with saturated surface snow.... Warming today could loosen wind slabs, cornices, and persistent slabs, and increase the chances of triggering avalanches.