Strong winds yesterday dug into the snow surface and moved plenty of snow around. New, stiff wind slabs up to 6" deep have developed on the lee sides of terrain features, and in out of the way places in wind exposed terrain. Yesterday, I found them to be non-reactive on slopes less steep than 35 degrees right around treeline, but I suspect that if you get into steeper terrain up in the alpine you could trigger a slide with enough oomph in it to take you for a ride. Be on the lookout for stiff, supportable snow with a smooth, chalky surface that feels hollow like a drum. A triggered wind slab also has the potential to step down to a buried, near surface facet layer causing a deeper, more dangerous avalanche.

In spite of a lack of available loose snow for transport, there was a lot of snow blowing around up there yesterday.

In general, the danger for triggering a persistent slab, or deep persistent slab is growing increasingly unlikely but there are still a few isolated areas where buried, near surface facets exist in the upper portion of the snowpack. There are also a few places where the snowpack is shallow enough that an overlying slab could be triggered down to basal facets, or depth hoar in the ground Areas where you may still encounter a problem are on steep, northerly facing aspects where the snow is shallow, or in areas of extreme rocky terrain.

New wind slabs have been added to the top of this structure, and it is still possible to trigger an avalanche down to this buried weak layer of faceted snow.