Winds will be light to moderate and mostly from the west, although considerable shifting may occur. I would guess the temperature in the mountains would remain well below freezing as it has for the past week. We have also accumulated an average of about 16 inches of very light new snow. I have been out all week digging pits on all aspects mostly in the Selkirks north of Schweitzer and have noticed a common theme, facets. Faceted snow forms when we have consistently cold weather.
Snow grains get angular and don t bond well to one another.
Also, fragile crystals like surface hoar don t break down. There are a couple of surface hoar layers in the snow pack that are producing shears on all aspects. Some of these surface hoar layers are shearing very easily. The most obvious one is about two feet down under a relatively dense layer of snow. Faceted snow on ice crusts are also shearing with moderate stress.