Watch for the cold smoke to move with human provocation on the steepest slopes of all aspects at the mid and upper elevations. I expect the sluffs to move fast and far on the slick underlying sun and wind crusts, entraining all the storm snow in the path below. The good news is that these types of avalanches readily show their cards and hold little mystery: they respond to ski cuts and cornice drops and break at your feet or machine rather than above you. These avalanches, however, can move at light-speed, easily trip up a slow or unsuspecting skier or rider and pile up deeply in a terrain trap. The key is to move diagonally across the slope or from area of safety to area of safety to avoid being engulfed in your own sluff. Google "sluff-management".

The new storm snow is only window dressing for the continued persistent slab problems in our conditionally unstable snowpack. We've slowly transitioned to a "low-probability - high consequence" regime where likelihood and sensitivity have greatly diminished but the consequences remain severe. Note that the additional stress of a more superficial storm snow avalanche may subsequently trigger one of these persistent slab avalanches. In sharp contrast to loose snow avalanches, this avalanche problem often holds its cards close where tests and observations may be inconsistent and misleading and avalanches may break well above the committed skier or rider. Again, use the infographics below to contrast with loose snow avalanches above. Note three of these were triggered in northerly terrain at 9600' in the central Wasatch yesterday.

It only takes just a bit of wind to move and slab the very low density snow. Super soft wind drifts may be found in a variety of lee encatchment zones and may be triggered at a distance. The north winds should erode many upper north facing starting zones and drift onto the steep west to south to east facing paths. Terrain channelling at the mid-elevations may allow soft wind drifts to develop on many aspects.