Wölz Tauern South

Beware potential starting zones for wet-snow/glide-snow avalanches

Beware potential starting zones for wet-snow/glide-snow avalanches

Avalanche danger is low. Older snowdrift accumulations are mostly triggered by large additional loading, releases small-to-medium slabs. Due to rain impact and mild temperatures, wet-snow activity on sunny slopes is again increasing. In addition, isolated naturally triggered glide-snow avalanches are possible in all aspects.

The snowpack base is stable by and large, but moist down to the ground, which means it can glide over smooth ground. Atop of it since Friday there has been up to 45 cm of fresh snow registered, often transported by southerly winds and deposited as snowdrifts on north-facing slopes atop soft layers of fresh snow, now well bonded. On south-facing slopes the snow is soft, at low altitudes sticky.  On shady slopes there are hardly any remaining reserves of cold in the snowpack.

The impact of the low over Italy is again increasing, the Eastern Alps remains in the zone of moist air masses. From the south, heavy clouds will move in on Friday, the peaks will be shrouded in fog, light precipitation first on the southern flank of the Alps, reaching the northern flank of the Alps in the afternoon. Precipitation will persist into the night, snowfall level will drop from 2000 m down to 1500 m. At 2000 m: +1 degree; at 1500 m: +3 degrees. The southerly winds will be mostly light, brisker on the eastern rim of the Alps.On Saturday, more sunshine on the northern flank of the Alps, heavy cloud on the southern flank of the Tauern, peaks in fog. Temperatures unchanged, moderate southerly winds, brisker in exposed terrain.

The gliding snow and wet-snow activity will persist, mostly moist snowfall at high altitudes is not likely to be transported.