Reported Saturday, February 14, 2009 at 5:55 AM

	Weather Forecast Today: Snow 3-6" possible, Southwest winds 10-20 mph with gusts to 30 mph. High Temperatures in CB and Gunnison in the mid 20's. Tonight: Partly Cloudy with lingering snow showers T-2" possible, West northwest winds 5-10 mph and Low Temperatures in CB in the single digits and in Gunnison around zero. Tomorrow: Partly Cloudy, west winds 5-10 mph, with a High temperature for CB and Gunnison around 30. Weather Outlook Next system arrives today on a somewhat favorable west / southwest flow. The national weather service is not to impressed with this current system but with a combination of a favorable jet stream, a mid day cold front passage, and decent orographics we should see some accumulations today. Looks like a period of heavy snow possible for mid afternoon today but not very long lived. Watch for clearing on Sunday with the next system moving in Monday night and Tuesday.

CONSIDERABLE Near and Above Tree Line on North through Southeast Aspects.
MODERATE with Pockets of CONSIDERABLE Above Tree Line on Northwest through South Aspects. MODERATE everywhere else.

LIKELIHOOD OF TRIGGERING

AVALANCHE SIZE

Trend

With low density snow available for transport and more snow coming today we should expect wind slabs to develop on Lee aspects today. With Southwest winds expect North through East aspects to be most suspect today, especially above tree line in wind exposed areas and below ridge tops and cornices.

The main concern currently is in the new snow or storm snow that has fallen since Sunday Feb 8th. Totals are between 10-20 inches around the Elk Mountains so far. Since then wind data has shown enough wind to transport snow though observers have been noticing surprisingly little slab formations in the new snow. Small natural and triggered slides have been observed, all small shallow wind slabs and/or point releases in very exposed ridge top locations. The mid pack currently is generally strong with lingering crusts on southerlies and some old buried weak layers on northerlies that are mostly non reactive at this time. Areas that have slid earlier this season remain shallow with weak faceted grains with a building slab on top of it. A skier triggered slab yesterday outside of Aspen was 2' deep on the ground from this same situation. The current snow surface is low density snow which is very available for wind transport and we should expect wind slabs to continue to develop today. With more snow and wind in the forecast expect the danger to rise through the weekend.