Hochschwab Mountains

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

The avalanche danger above 1.800 m 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 increase with height.

Due to mild sunny weather the snow cover got soft 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 formed again which is 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.

In the front of a low pressure system from the western Mediterranean moist air masses are lead against the eastern Alps. The first half of the night is clear from midnight on it gets cloudy to overcast. From Monday on high clouds are dominating but it stays predominantly dry. Winds coming generally from the south are brisk in the beginning of the day but weaken during the course of the day. Temperatures at noon are around 0 degrees in 2.000 m and +3 degrees in 1.500 m. In Tuesday the clouds are dense and it cools down. In the afternoon little snowfall is possible from Tauernhauptkamm on in direction south.

Due to cooling tension within the snowdrift are persistent.