Savinja Alps and Carinthia

New and blown snow

New and blown snow

On Wednesday, precipitation started to fall in the north during the night. The snowfall level was initially at around 1500 m and quickly dropped. The snow weakened temporarily at midday on Thursday. After the passage of a cold front, a strong northerly wind blew, carrying New fallen snow and building up new snow layers on the southern flanks. A total of 15-30 cm of new fallen snow fell in the mountains.

New fallen snow and blown snow are the main dangers. Danger is increased especially on slopes and in gullies where the height of New fallen snow is greater due to snow accumulations.

In addition to new fallen snow, weak layers in the snowpack deeper in the snowpack can be a local problem. These weak layers are more prevalent in the axis above the forest. In particular, a large avalanche can be triggered if the load exceeds the load-bearing capacity of these layers.

15-30 cm of dry and light snow fell in the mountains. A strong northerly wind blew in with the snow, blowing the snow down to the old base in many places. The new fallen snow is only slowly consolidating with the old base. Ridges and peaks are blown down to the old base, in some places there is little old base. During the previous snowfall, there was some local fall of graupel, which is a potentially dangerous weak layer. Locally, the layers of Graupel are 5-10 cm thick, possibly more.

In the old snow cover, the snow layers are mostly well connected. Deep below the surface, several weak layers of shreds and sheared grains occur, especially on the axial sides.

Partly clear with moderate cloud, cloud bases will be mostly over the tops. Moderate to strong northerly winds will continue. Mid-day temperatures will be around 2 °C at 1500 m and -6 °C at 2500 m.

There will be more clouds in the coming days, small showers are possible early next week. The danger of avalanches will remain similar.