Winds Tuesday overnight will add to the wind slabs present in steep lee areas, but there may be little snow left to transport. Treat lee loaded areas with extra caution especially if entering large steep terrain features.
Several persistent weak layers are present in the top meter of the snowpack. Generally, they are not reactive to skier traffic but we still get occasional reports of avalanches on one of the layers, usually on steep convex rolls or in thin areas.
Deep persistent slabs are best managed by:
Cornices are best managed by:
A wind event is expected to persist throughout the region tonight and into the early hours of Wednesday (Extreme from the West). A slight cooling trend will follow the wind event. Expect calm conditions and benign weather on Thurs/Fri.
Up to 10 cm of snow over thin sun crust on steep solar aspects and over previously wind scoured terrain at treeline and above. Jan 11th interface down 20-35 cm producing mod to hard results. Dec 25th, 13th and 7th layers down 50-120 cm and generally produce hard or no results. A rain crust exists on surface below 1500 m in eastern areas.
A large natural cornice fall was observed on Rockwall Peak. No slab was associated with the cornice fall on the fan below. Otherwise, no avalanches were observed or reported.