Semmering - Wechselgebiet

Snowdrift accumulations are prone to triggering in places!

Snowdrift accumulations are prone to triggering in places!

The avalanche danger is low. Nevertheless, fresh drift snow areas can be triggered as small slab avalanches by a single person. The avalanche prone locations are located in particular in the steep terrain adjacent to the ridgeline, crest or summit in the north-west, east to south aspects as well as in gullies and bowls. The risk of being swept away and falling continues to outweigh the risk of burial.

Some new fallen snow was deposited by strong winds from westerly directions in the leeward areas as wind slab on a soft layer of snow interspersed with graupel. A little rain and warming has partially moistened the snow cover, where a melt-freeze crust has formed. Weak layers for slab avalanches form soft snow layers (new fallen snow, faceted crystals) in the transition to the crusted old snowpack, the foundation of which is occasionally weakened by kinetic metamorphism. The snow depth varies greatly. Hardness, blown and drifting snow-laden areas alternate.

Saturday evening and the first half of the night turned out to be cloudy with light snowfall. During the first few hours of Sunday, the mountain peaks in Lower Austria were still covered in thick clouds, but during the daytime changes the weather softened and the sun appeared more often and for longer periods. The wind will blow exposed, strong to stormy from the north-west. It will be much colder again, with temperatures between -16 and -13 degrees at 2000 metres and around -13 degrees at 1500 metres.

After a sunny start on Monday, it will become increasingly cloudy from the west, with light snowfall in the afternoon. With a moderate westerly wind, it will become much milder at all altitudes. Wind slabs at higher altitudes will remain the main problem for the time being.