Well at least the increasing winds mean that more snow is on the way. Today though keep an eye out for wind loading on leeward slopes. Southwest winds are expected to increase throughout the day and, with snow available for transport, we'll see wind slabs quickly forming, especially along ridgelines and gullies at high elevations. Avoid steep slopes with freshly drifted snow to avoid this problem. Even a small wind slab avalanche has the potential to step down to a deeper weak layer and create a much larger and more dangerous avalanche.

Note: the avalanche danger for wind slab avalanches could rise to Considerable, especially if wind speeds increase sooner in the day and/or are stronger than expected.

Cutler Ridge wind slab from Monday. (pc: Doug Wewer)

We are certainly all learning the true meaning of persistent this season. While we get nickel and dimed with snowfall amounts, the persistent weak layers present in most of the zone's snowpack are not going anywhere anytime soon. We are still experiencing high variability in stability test results from slope to slope and even pit to pit but the clearly visible poor snowpack structure is still a major red flag. In some areas the weakest snow sits under a slab while, in others, there is a multi-layered crust/facet sandwich. No matter what the setup, it is still possible to trigger an avalanche 1 to 3 feet deep on these buried weak layers, especially on steep, northwest through easterly facing slopes at high and mid elevations. The consequences of getting caught in a slide are high as rocks and stumps are still hardly buried in the unseasonably thin snowpack.

Low angle, sheltered terrain still offers the best riding conditions anyway.