These recent avalanches are a good example of a very weak, faceted snowpack failing under a fairly light load. New snow and wind were a factor, but winds were never very strong for very long and the snow load was fairly gradual. Size is D1, about 1 foot deep, 20-60ft in width and run 10-25 feet. This weak layer will continue to be a persistent problem into the long-term future.
As the storm snow consolidates and stiffness over the next couple days, it will become progressively more difficult to trigger, and the size of the avalanches will increase. Add more wind and/or precipitation and the size could increase substantially. Storm snow avalanches tend to fail within 24-48 hours of a storm and then begin to subside. The problem here is that this new storm snow sits on persistent weak grains, so in the next day or two expect the classification to change to persistent slab and for human triggered avalanches to continue to be a problem.
This avalanche conditions "best guess" for the next few days is intended to provide you with an outlook for the avalanche hazard. You should employ careful snowpack evaluation, cautious route finding, and conservative decision making, especially if you head into the mid to upper elevations (~3500'+) over the next few days, at least.
