If it slides like a slab, and comes from a storm...

We went sledding and skiing in the southern Whitefish Range to look at instabilities from the most recent storm. Found some too.

• Despite a few "false stable" test pit results, we could trigger 10 inch thick storm slabs on steep, mid elevation slopes. We got shooting cracks, and collapsing in the storm snow on adjacent slopes that didn't slide. 
• The new snow was very upside-down with dense heavy snow over softer, fluffier snow below.
• Snowline overnight seems to have been around 5,000'. There still isn't enought snow below that elevation to really get moving as an avalanche. However, we did find a few inches of very wet new snow at lower elevations causing roller balls and itty bitty point releases.
• We saw some occasional blowing snow at ridgetops, but it seemed to have stopped after about 1pm. Middle and lower elevations were calm all day.
• We were surprised at how little precipitation we saw during the day. No new snow of note while we were out. Drizzling rain off and on at the trailhead.
• We avoided big steep slopes at mid elevations and upper elevations where we expected bigger, wind drifted slabs.