Fischbach Alps East, Wechsel

Isolated wet-snow slides in higher mountain regions

Isolated wet-snow slides in higher mountain regions

In the southern massifs, avalanche danger is low. The risks of trigger-sensitive snowdrift accumulations has diminished another notch. In steep high-altitude terrain, isolated wet-snow slides cannot be ruled out.

On the southern flank of the Tauern, in the Seetal Alps and the rimline ranges above 1500 m, up to 10 cm of of increasingly moist new snow was registered on Wednesday, in the Turrach 5 centimetres, which on Wednesday night will melt under rain impact. Also the hardened old snowpack with melt-freeze crusts will moisten at all altitudes. As a result of the rain and, most of all, the significantly rising temperatures, weak layers inside the snowpack can recede but the snowpack will forfeit much of its stability.

The Eastern Alps lie in the path of a westerly high-altitude air current. On Wednesday evening a warm front will sweep over the land and bring heavy precipitation over the Main Tauern Ridge and further south. Temperatures will swiftly rise and with them, the snowfall level: it will rise to over 2000 m on Thursday. The mountains will disappear in heavy fog (only the Koralpe will be partly sunny around midday), the rainfall will be intermittently heavy accompanied by storm-strength W/NW winds. Temperatures will rise by midday to +3 degrees at 2000 m, +5 degrees at 1500 m. On Thursday night, the rain will gradually slacken off, the clouds being to disperse from the west and it will turn increasingly sunny. The stormy westerly winds will diminish in velocity during the daytime but it will remain extremely mild (up to +10 degrees at 2000 m).

Due to further warming and solar radiation on New Year’s Eve the snowpack will continue to forfeit firmness.