Dust on crust on Waterhouse

Went to Waterhouse to check out the start of this storm and how the new snow was interacting with the snow affected by last week's warming. Were out from 8-10 AM, traveled mostly on varying degrees of NE aspects. Found very little new snow accumulation from yesterday and last night, just a skiff down low and maybe 1-3 inches as we climbed in elevation. The new snow was very light/low density, sitting on top of a strong and in some areas breakable melt freeze crust. Where the crust was breakable (NE aspects, particularly between 7800 and 8200 ft), found rounding facets beneath that were bonding slightly better than expected on compression (ie when squeezed firmly, could make a fragile snowball). Did not find any evidence of wind effect from this storm thus far below and at treeline on NE aspects. Coverage better than expected, but still decent amount of logs/rocks/small trees exposed at the mid and lower elevations. At times snowfall was moderate, but it was intermixed with broken clouds and some sun. Although colder when we left the car (19 deg), was much warmer by the time we wrapped up our tour (car thermometer said 42 deg).