The avalanche danger will increase Wednesday night into Thursday with new snow and wind.  While winds are generally light, and are forecast to stay light, they were providing for some snow transport of the extensively faceted and easily transportable existing loose surface snow from last Friday and the new snow that began falling in the Front Range and Eagle River area mountains at ~3:30pm Wednesday afternoon.

Up to a few inches of new snow are possible in the Front Range and Eagle River area mountains through Thursday.  Combined with wind, shallow wind slabs may form in the upper elevations (above ~3500′).

New snow isn’t expected to bond particularly well to the existing snow surface, which is icy hardpack or icy hardpack covered with up to a few inches of extensively faceted loose snow from last Friday.

The potential for human triggering of small wind and soft slabs at the new/old snow interface will increase the avalanche danger for Thursday.

Stay tuned: we’ll be providing a more thorough update and weekend avalanche outlook later this week.