Wind Scouring on Silver Peak

We toured in the Silver Peak area to look at the new storm snow and recent wind transport.  NE winds were decreasing in speed throughout the day and were only gusty along the upper ridgelines and peak.  Gusts got into the moderate range and were moving light amounts of snow as the available snow for transport is decreasing.  Small drifts were noted along ridgelines, but these did not extend very far downslope. Most N-NE-E aspects in near and above treeline terrain have already been scoured back down to the firm previous surface crusts. 10-12'' of cold low-density storm snow exists in wind-protected below treeline areas.  Wind protected areas showed unconsolidated snow that did not have slab characteristics.  This recent storm snow sits on top of firm and variable crusts and in below treeline areas, decomposing breakable crusts with weak faceted snow.  This weak layer, at this point, does not represent a concern with a relatively small additional load with no cohesive slab.  Snowpit tests targetting this layer did not produce unstable results (ECTN, PST 20/100 SF, CT 6 brk).

Full sun on southerly aspects did start to warm the snow surface by the early afternoon hours.  This mostly just made for thicker surface snow conditions with no signs of wet snow instabilities at that point.  As temperatures increase this week, loose wet avalanches are expected to become more of an issue.