Post-storm observations from the Northern Whitefish Range

We toured into an area that saw favored snowfall in the past 24 hours to check the sensitivity of storm slab and wind slab problems.  We found both problems are becoming more difficult to trigger compared to yesterday.

• ~10" of settled storm snow over a lower density layer produced moderate shears in hand pits, but was unreactive to snowmobile or ski cuts on numerous test slopes.
• We produced localized cracking in wind drifted areas.  A pit on a windloaded slope produced hard, propagating results in a 2 foot thick wind slab.
• We saw two fresh wind slabs, D1 in size, below leeward ridgelines above 6,000'.  
• Today's weather:  Light winds and a mix of sun and snow.