The big melt continues. The freezing level is around 3000 meters this week. The conditions are extremely poor, skiable from 1600 to 1800 meters on north sector slopes and over 2000 meters on south facing slopes. As a consequence the risk of triggering a slab avalanche is very low.
On south sector slopes you can find some spring skiing conditions. There have also been a few full depth avalanches on these aspects. Above 2300 - 2500 meters there is some "sugar snow" on sheltered north facing slopes but crust elsewhere. A few cms of new snow is expected at altitude on Tuesday (29/12) but it will not improve the exceptionally bad snow conditions. Be careful travelling on glaciers as crevasses are open or poorly bridges. Elsewhere falls due to ice and rocks are the principal danger.
The SLF (Swiss) website has some interesting avalanche information in particular this profile.
http://www.slf.ch/schneeinfo/wochenbericht/2015-16/1201/index_FR
This is from mid December on a north sector slope in the Grisons. There is a crust at ground level covered with depth hoar or destructured snow. Afterwards there is faceted snow mixed with fine crusts. A block test ruptured near the surface but could have broken on the lower layer of depth hoar. The crust has obviously given the snowpack a certain resistance. This is something we noticed a couple of weeks ago at 2000m although there the crust was much thicker. As the Swiss researchers note, most of the mountain regions are like this on north sector slopes.
If this snowpack is covered by fresh snow one can expect slabs to break either near the surface of the current snowpack and/or at the layer of goblets near to ground level. A small surface avalanche may take out the whole snowpack. On slopes which are currently snow covered over a wide area an avalanche could cover the whole slope as the weaknesses are widespread. One can expect avalanches that are both large and run further than usual. Group spacing and selection of islands of safety will be critical under those conditions. North sector slopes above 2300 meters will be particularly suspect.