Forecasted heavy snowfall will create sensitive storm snow today, including storm slabs as well as loose snow avalanches. Human-triggered avalanches are likely, and I am also expecting natural avalanches, especially during any period of high precipitation intensity. Pay attention to rapidly changing conditions, and watch for clues such as cracking or avalanching, even on smaller slopes.

Strong winds out of the south/southwest created some dense wind drifts at the upper elevations on Sunday, and today's northwest winds will have plenty of new, low-density snow to work with, creating fresh wind drifts on all aspects at the mid and upper elevations. Some of these drifts may be 2' thick in places. Also watch for sensitive cornices along upper elevation ridgelines, especially on aspects facing north through east.

While the faceted weak layers in our snowpack continue to gain strength and adjust to the recent loading of storm and wind-driven snow, they still cannot be completely trusted. I dug several pits over this past weekend, especially in areas that had what we considered a thin snowpack (< 3') prior to last week's storm. My stability tests were showing these weak layers to be gaining strength, but Drew and Don Carpenter still found pre-Christmas facets reactive in their field work on Sunday (observation). With so many avalanches occurring this past Thursday, it is possible some slopes have repeated (some are habitual offenders from all season long), exposing a thinner snowpack that may be reactive to today's new load of storm and wind-driven snow.