Allgäu Alps West

Still trigger-sensitive intermediate layers on high-altitude shady slopes

Nocturnal hours: a night of clear and cold skies, temperatures dropping to -4 to -10 degreers, in places to -15 degrees. Thursday: high-pressure front conditions, cloudless skies, brilliant sunshine. Slight SE foehn wind can be bothersome especially in Silvretta-Arlberg regions. At 2000 m: -10 to -7 degrees. Moderate easterly winds.

Mostly sunny in coming days due to high-pressure front conditions. Temperatures will remain wintery. The snowpack is still prone to triggering.

Still trigger-sensitive intermediate layers on high-altitude shady slopes

Considerable avalanche danger prevails at high altitudes. Avalanche prone locations occur in wind-loaded steep terrain, behind abrupt discontinuities in the terrain, and in gullies and bowls, Small to medium, in isolated cases also large-sized slab avalanches can be triggered even by minimum additional loading, i.e. the weight of one sole skier. Whumpf noises and glide-cracks in the snowpack are signals of imminent danger. Activities in backcountry terrain demand experience in assessing dangers on-site. In addition, on steep, seldom-tracked shady slopes at high altitudes, more deeply embedded layers inside the snowpack can be triggered by large additional loading. Below 2200 m on sunny steep grassy slopes, glide-snow avalanches are possible.

Fresh snow and drifts were able to settle at low and intermediate altitudes, and consolidate. With ascending altitude this process requires longer. Fresh snow and snowdrifts often lie deposited atop unfavourable old snowpack surfaces consisting of surface hoar, melt-freeze encrusted or softened layers. Bonding of fresh snow and drifts to these layers and also inside the snowpack itself is frequently poor. At high altitudes on steep shady slopes there are still older unfavourable intermediate layers inside the snowpack which are not visible to the naked eye. Naturally triggered avalanches confirm the proneness to triggering of the snowpack.