Fischbach Alps East, Wechsel

Favorable conditions for backcountry tours continue

Favorable conditions for backcountry tours continue

Low danger prevails in Styria. Isolated avalanche prone locations occur on N/E-facing slopes, where there is a persistent weak layer (deeply embedded). A slab avalanche triggering on extremely steep shady slopes cannot be ruled out. Avoid zones below glide cracks, due to possible gliding movement of the entire snowpack. Since the loose powder cover cannot bond with the crusts beneath it, there is acute risk of falling on very steep slopes.

Along the Niedere Tauern and Northern Alps the compact old snowpack is melt-freeze encrusted and, depending on aspect, more or less capable of bearing loads. While sunny slopes have melt-freeze crusts, shady slopes have hardened, often icy surfaces. Atop them in wind-protected zones is often loose powder, mostly without bonding to the old snowpack beneath. Also in shady forest lanes the snow is (because of the cold) unbonded and quite loose. South of the Mur-Mürz Rift the snowpack is also stable, snow depths are meagre. Melt-freeze and wind crusts tend to dominate. In zones where the snow is shallow the snowpack is expansively metamorphosed (faceted).

A pronounced high-pressure front over Central Europe is the force behind our weather: tranquil, mild and sunny. Styria lies at its eastern edge, thus intermediate-altitude clouds can be expected in the rimline ranges, these will disperse in the course of the morning. By midday, sunshine is expected throughout the mountains. The NE winds will be light, brisker later in the day. Temperatures at midday at 2000 m will be -8 degrees; at 1500 m: -4 degrees; Ennstal massif and Ausseer Landes will be milder, due to foehn influence: -3 to 0 degrees. Saturday will be quite sunny, somewhat milder, but brisk SE winds in the eastern sector of the Northern Alps will presist. The stable winter weather will probably endure until mid-week.

Little change is expected in the avalanche situation, the favourable conditions will dominate.