Lower Tauern South

Treacherous avalanche situation for backcountry skiing and freeriding tours

Treacherous avalanche situation for backcountry skiing and freeriding tours

Avalanche danger is considerable. The situation demands self-restraint and experience in assessing dangers on-site. Danger zones are difficult to recognize due to wide-ranging snow transport and poor visibility. Proneness to snowdrifts triggering rapidly increases above the treeline, avalanches can be triggered by 1 person and grow to large size. Drifts also distant from ridges due to massive transport of snow in all aspects. Danger zones occur esp. on wind-protected slopes, in gullies and bowls, at forest edges. Avalanche danger increases with ascending altitude. Over the last few days, massive and wide-ranging cornices have formed. Due to warmth on Sunday the risk of cornices breaking rises. Avoid all zones beneath cornices. Below 2500 m, medium-sized glide-snow avalanches can trigger naturally at any time of day, esp. on steep smooth slopes (grass-covered, rocks) in all aspects. Furthermore, due to rain impact wet loose-snow avalanches are possible in extremely steep terrain, mostly small sized.

Stormy winds have done their work on the snowpack, crests and ridges are windblown, snowdrifts lie far from ridgelines. The massive amounts of transported fresh snow was deposited at high altitudes on shady slopes atop a loose snowpack surface. Even where the surface was encrusted, the crust formed a faceted weak layer in some places. In addition, weak near-surface layers are forming inside the masses of fresh fallen snow. At intermediate to low altitudes, rain and snow are increasing the weight load on the snowpack. The entire snow cover can glide downhill over smooth ground. The snowpack up to 1700 m is moist, at lower altitudes thoroughly wet. Above that, winter sports excursions in outlying terrain can expect highly wind-impacted and irregular snowpack surfaces.

On Sunday, low lying clouds will reduce visibility severely, with a few sunny intervals. In the afternoon, intermittent showers will move in from the north. Snowfall level on Sunday between 2000 and 2500 m. Fresh snow and rainfall will be minor, in the Tauern it will remain dry. Winds will be stormy from the west. At 2000 m: -2 to +2 degrees; at 3000 m: -4 degrees.

The danger of dry-snow avalanches will diminish as temperatures rise. The danger of glide-snow avalanches will persist.