The good news is that the Ogden mountains had very little snow prior to the onset of this Thanksgiving week storm. However, there was some old snow on northerly aspects at the highest elevations, and this snow became weak, sugary, and faceted. Heavy snowfall over the past two days combined with strong winds from the south has overloaded this weak snow, creating areas where avalanches failing down at the ground are possible.

We have limited data about his old, faceted snow and must assume any slope that had snow prior to this week has this weak faceted snow. Down in the Salt Lake mountains, several avalanches failing at this layer of weak snow were triggered remotely (from a distance) on Thursday, indicating how this persistent weak layer avalanche problem can only be managed by avoiding avalanche terrain on northerly aspects where old snow may be present.

Doug Wewer snapped a few great photos of old snow coverage on Ben Lomond Peak like the one below.

Moderate to strong winds overnight from the south have likely created fresh wind drifts at the mid and upper elevations. Watching for signs of instability including cracking in these fresh wind slabs, as illustrated in the following photo: (Mark White)

Instabilities within the storm snow have largely settled out, but continued snowfall today may produce avalanching in the storm snow. This includes sluffing on steep slopes as well as denser storm slabs. There are several density changes within the storm snow, and this may complicate assessing the stability of the new snow.