Glockner Group Pasterze

Circumvent freshly generated snowdrift accumulations

Circumvent freshly generated snowdrift accumulations

As a result of resh snow and increasingly stormy winds, wide-reaching snowdrift accumulations have been generated particularly at the foot of rock cliffs and behing protruberances in the landscape. These drifts can be triggered easily by one single skier in all aspects above 2200m. Particularly on east-facing and southeast-facing slopes the snowdrifts are expected to grow during the nocturnal hours. Avalanches can fracture down to more deeply embedded layers inside the snowpack on shady slopes in particular, and then grow to larger size. Whumpt noises and glide-cracks when the snowpack is tred upon are indicators of danger. Frequency and size of danger zones tend to increase with ascending altitude. In addition, during the course of the day small loosely-packed snow avalanches will be possible particularly at the foot of rock cliffs, especially on extremely steep sunny slopes along the Salzburg border in case of extended bright intervals.

Up to 20cm of fresh snow was registered. The often storm-strength winds have intensively transported the snow. The cold fresh fallen snow and the far-reaching snowdrift accumulations which have been deposited particularly in gullies, bowls and behind protruberances in the terrain, lie deposited in all aspects above 2200m atop an unfavorale old snowpack surface, inside of which there are faceted, expansively metamorphosed weak layers evident on shady wind-protected slopes, especially above 2400m. The snowpack is highly irregular, even over small areas.

From the north, dense cloudbanks will accumulate but hardly any precipitation is expected. The NW winds will slacken off significantly, be blowing at moderate strength. At 3000m: -11 degrees; at 2000m: -6 degrees.

Avalanche danger levels are increasing.