Weisseck, Muhr Valley

Fresh wind slab forms snow slab on weak old snowpack

Fresh wind slab forms snow slab on weak old snowpack

The avalanche risk is considerable above the tree line. The situation is precarious for winter sports. Medium-sized slab avalanches can easily be triggered by individuals in some places, especially from west to north to east, but also in a few places in the southern sector. If wind slabs are disturbed near the surface, there is a high likelihood of avalanches breaking through into deeper layers. The old snowpack is poorly built up across the board: Avalanche prone locations are barely recognisable and require a defensive route choice. In particular, be careful near transitions from a little to a lot of snow and in the entrance areas to steep gullies. Remote triggering is possible in isolated cases.

A soft snow surface and surface hoar were overlaid by a strong southerly foehn with fresh wind slab. In the past 24 hours, up to 25 cm of snow fell on top of this again, with less and less wind influence towards the end of the precipitation. In general, areas with little snow alternate with considerable snowdrift accumulations, some of which are as hard as a board and some of which are already building up. Breaks usually occur between the fresh and slightly older layers of drift snow or near the crust that forms the transition to the completely angular old snowpack. Under this crust, the old snowpack consists mainly of deep rime and angular forms, which are interspersed with other crusts in areas with more snow. On the ground, snow from early winter can sometimes be found in the form of a hardness melt-freeze crust.

A lively southerly foehn will develop overnight along the Tauern, reaching speeds of around 60 km/h at high altitudes. In the morning hours, the foehn will ease considerably. Friday will be mostly cloudy, with limited visibility at higher altitudes at times. In the morning, there may be some clearing towards the east. In the afternoon, snowfall will move in from the west and rain will fall below around 1500 metres. However, the amounts will be small overall, with a maximum of 5 to 10 cm of new fallen snow. The wind will be weak to moderate from the west at all altitudes. Temperatures at 2000 m will be around -2 degrees, at 3000 m around -8 degrees.

The wind slab problem is slowly improving, but the persistent weak layer problem remains.