Yesterday, the northwest wind picked up around 10:00 am, averaging 15-25 mph with gusts into the 20s and 30s throughout the day and night. This morning the wind is still elevated and will remain elevated throughout the day. Because of this, I would expect shallow sensitive drifts of wind-blown snow across all upper-elevation terrain. These avalanches will be soft slabs of wind-drifted snow that could be extra sensitive because they either formed over a slick sun crust (sunny side) or our weak and faceted snow surface (shady side).

A buried layer of faceted snow and depth hoar 2-4 feet deep exists at the mid and upper elevations on aspects facing northwest through east. The last reported avalanche failing on this layer was on January 5 on the Ant Knolls. But to our north, where there is a similar snowpack structure, avalanches failing on the PWL are reported almost daily. I would advise caution and continue to avoid steep terrain on the north side of the compass.