Lower Tauern North

Snowdrifts more easily triggered with ascending altitude

Snowdrifts more easily triggered with ascending altitude

Avalanche danger above 1500 m is CONSIDERABLE (3), below that altitude danger is MODERATE. Restraint and experience is required in outlying terrain. Winter sports enthusiasts can trigger a slab avalanche easily in very steep zones above 1500 m, particularly in NE/E/S/W aspects. The impulst of one sole skier can be sufficient, Slab avalanches can be medium-to-large sized. Caution also urged on very steep shady slopes, also below the treeline. Naturally triggered avalanches will be seldom on Sunday. Isolated naturally triggered releases can occur on heavily wind-loaded slopes and loose-snow avalanches in steep rocky terrain due to warmth and sunshine in the afternoon.

The abundant snowfall in some places was heavily windblown above the treeline and distributed quite irregularly. Wind-exposed terrain is blown bare, most of the new snow is found at forest rims on south-facing and east-facing slopes. Due to the warmth impulse on Saturday, the likelihood of avalanches triggering at lower altitudes diminished (due to settling). At high altitudes, however, this is not the case. Below the last snowdrifts and the entire mass of new snow of the last three days (40-60 cm) there are still weak layers which can be triggered (blanketed powder and faceted weak layers beneath the latest melt-freeze crusts) in north-facing aspects and at high altitudes.

On Sunday it will be sunny, not as stormy (northerly winds reaching 30-40 km/hr). Temperature at 2000 m: -7 degrees. On Monday, sunshine. Mostly light winds. Temperature at 2000 m: -4 degrees; at 3000 m. -8 degrees.

Danger zones will decrease as temperatures rise.