Southerly-facing aspects and low-elevation northerly-facing terrain took in a ton of heat today. I expect a new crust on many slopes except Northwest, North, and Northeast. I would imagine some east-facing terrain was spared, but not Reynolds east. I had to stick to the north-facing side of the bowl to find soft snow.

On northerly facing terrain, there was about 6 inches of new storm snow above the dirt/crust layer formed from high pressure and warm temperatures from February 22nd to March 2nd. This dirt/crust layer was buried March 2nd. Unfortunately, I did find small grained faceted snow (NSF) buried about 7" down in this location.

Tomorrow, the in-your-face issue will be the new storm snow and wind (strong SSW wind). I think there will be enough new snow and strong wind to create unstable avalanche conditions across most upper elevation terrain. I would expect avalanches to break to the old snow surfaces and within density changes in the new snow. Of course, heavily wind-loaded slopes will also be suspect. On southerly facing terrain avalanches will run fast and far on the underlying hard surfaces.

PWL: The biggest concern for a persistent weak layer avalanche will be slopes that have avalanched one or more times this season and/or have an overall more shallow snowpack. Thin rocky terrain continues to show weak snow. I think of shallow snowpack areas as less than 5 feet deep.

On slopes facing northwest, north, northeast, and east, we have a new weak layer from the nine days of high pressure at the end of February. Yes, this layer is NOT large grain faceted snow. It's smaller-grained near-surface faceted snow (just as dangerous). At least in the short term. I expect avalanches to break to this layer if we get the forecast water weight. This will also be the layer that will be more active in the days to come. Meaning we will see the new snow and wind instabilities settle out and we will still see avalanches triggered to this layer at least for the next week or more. Just my thoughts.

Be careful for the next few days friends. Sunny Saturday with 25-40 inches of snow scares me. Time to take a step back again.

The Core.

North facing terrain rode well today. Too bad we are going to overload our snowpack AGAIN. All good, we need the water.