Hochschwab Mountains

With the south wind on shady slopes fresh, poorly bonded snowdrift on top of surface hoar!

The avalanche danger above the treeline is moderate. In shady areas slab avalanches can be triggered by small additional loads. These avalanches are usually small but can reach medium size in some places. Danger spots are usually located in shady northwestern to eastern expositions especially in transitions from little to much snow, in entries to steep gullies and bowls and behind ridgelines. The danger areas start in lightly forested areas and increase with height. Spontaneous loose-snow avalanches on sunny extremely steep rock areas are possible.

Due to mild sunny weather the snow cover has settled in sunny high-altitude slopes. On shady slopes driftsnow-which formed during precipitation Wednesday-is prone to triggering in some places. Also du to south winds there can driftsnow can form again which will be poorly bonded to the predominantly existing surface hoar. In addition persistent weak layers are there for a longer period due to low amounts of snow and faceted snow layers and crusts which are weakening the snow base.

The high pressure system that has recently determined the weather is slowly weakening, and the upper air currents are turning to the southeast to the south, starting from a low pressure system over Sardinia. After a cloudless night, Sunday promises magnificent, cloudless mountain weather again. Brisk to strong-velocity winds along the eastern Northern Alps (Ennstal Alps via Hochschwab to Rax) in exposed areas, otherwise moderately from the south. The temperatures reach at noon +4 degrees at 2.000m and +6 degrees at 1.500m. It is only a little cooler from the Gurk and Seetal Alps to the Styrian foothills. On Monday, high clouds will move in from the southwest, and the probability of high fog will increase in the southeast. And it will cool down significantly again.

Due to cooling tension within the snowdrift are persistent.