Lower Tauern South

Individual sliding snow avalanches, isolated danger spots in old snow

Individual sliding snow avalanches, isolated danger spots in old snow

The risk of avalanches is low, the risk of falling or injury from rocks is greater than the risk of burial. There are isolated danger spots for slab avalanches at high altitudes (old snow problem). This mainly affects extremely steep, shady slopes, especially gullies and hollows that have been blown in. In a few places, mainly small avalanches can be triggered by people. Small sliding snow avalanches are possible from very steep, not yet unloaded grass mat terrain.

The surface is dominated by (fractured) hardpack or crusts, which soften a little on the sunny side during the day. At shady high altitudes, there are angular crystals within the snowpack near the crusts, which can occasionally serve as a weak layer. Below this, the snowpack is stable and sometimes glides on a smooth surface. The snow depths at all altitudes are well below the expected long-term values, and on the sunny side it is snow-free far up.

Monday night is starry on the mountains, the wind is mostly weak, with a foehn-like southerly wind only blowing directly on the main Tauern ridge. During the day, the sun will shine above the valley fog with excellent visibility. In the foehn corridors of the Tauern, increasingly lively southerly winds with peaks between 40 and 60 km/h will freshen up during the course of the day, otherwise the wind will remain weak. At 2000 metres between 2 and 8 degrees, at 3000 metres around 0 degrees.

A strong southerly foehn will blow in the Tauern on Tuesday. However, the potential for dispersion is low and limited to high alpine areas.