Chiemgau Alps East

Fresh snowdrifts at higher altitudes from place to place prone to triggering.

Fresh snowdrifts at higher altitudes from place to place prone to triggering.

The avalanche danger in the Bavarian Alps is moderate above the timberline; below it is low. Main problem: fresh snowdrifts. Avalanche prone locations are found adjacent to and distant from ridgelines in N/E/S aspects as well as in freshly wind-loaded gullies and bowls. In some places, small to medium-sized slab avalanches can be triggered by minimum additional loading such as the weight of one sole skier. In the Chiemgau Alps and in the Berchtesgaden Alps snowdrift accumulations are bigger and avalanches can more frequently attain medium size. Further west, the danger of taking a fall outweighs that of being buried in snow masses. However, at higher altitude avalanches can here also grow to medium size in individual cases. At lower altitudes, wet snow avalanches can additionally release naturally. They tend to stay small.

In the Bavarian Alps the snowpack is heavily wind impacted. Snowdrift accumulations are continuously being generated anew, but apart from the eastern Alpine ranges they are mostly small. Partly, trigger-sensitive intermediate layers are embedded in the packed snowdrift accumulations. In many places they also contain graupel. Wind-exposed locations are blown completely bare. From the Allgäu region to the Werdenfels region a thin crust remains underneath the snow of the last precipitation period which so far has not proved to be problematic. The old snowpack is mostly stable. At lower altitudes rain falls on the below average depth snowpack during the night making it forfeit its firmness.

Intense snowfalls are anticipated as of Monday. The avalanche danger will increase.