Snow Flurries and Mist on Mt. Rose

We toured in the Incline Lake Peak and Slab Cliffs area today to look at current conditions and monitor wind slab development.  Light snow flurries this morning deposited around 1-2'' of new snow with generally cold and windy conditions.  Moderate SW winds were transporting snow in near and above treeline areas.  Some cracking occurred in wind loaded terrain as wind slabs were developing as well as new cornices forming.  Existing cornices have gained some strength and were stubborn to non reactive.  Soft snow continues to exist in many near and above treeline areas for future wind transport as continued elevated winds are expected over the next couple days.  Snowpack tests on the recent storm snow in the upper snowpack did not show any signs of existing weaknesses.  Mist/light rain started to fall just after midday at 8200' on our way back to the Lake.  After our ski we drove up to the Mt. Rose summit parking area at 8900' where light rain was also falling with wet surface snow.