Storm slab appears to be confined to areas that are at least receiving just enough wind to help consolidate the new snow into soft slab development. With the abundance of new snow and it's overall light density, long running new snow avalanches were obviously possible by late in the day on Thursday. Loose Snow Dry Avalanches were more the rule today in the mid elevation protected areas traveled.
Cornices appear to be growing once again and should be suspect.
After observing the Deep Slab release in the Brighton area on Wednesday, similar steep/rocky/northerly facing terrain may still have weak structure well over a meter down. And with this new significant load large triggers like the cornice fall from yesterday may still be able to help trigger some of these very isolated giants. In the areas receiving loading from the wind, naturals may be possible overnight on Thursday and into the early morning hours.
Due to the high PI, the avalanche danger rating for the day up until mid afternoon in mid elevation terrain appeared to be Considerable. And, it may have spiked to High later in the afternoon when the precip was into it's fourth or fifth hour of S4 plus intensity. Upper elevation terrain would appear to have been in the High category throughout the day. Tomorrow looks to be more of the same, and if the winds gain strength, then High would be the call for the day, and this will likely be much more widespread than on most of Thursday.
