Bregenzerwald Mountains

Beware gliding snow and snowdrift accumulations at high altitudes

Beware gliding snow and snowdrift accumulations at high altitudes

For winter sports enthusiasts, predominantly favorable conditions prevail with moderate avalanche danger. In high ridgeline terrain, in gullies and bowls, freshly generated snowdrift accumulations require special attentiveness: they are often blanketed by fresher snowdrifts and are trigger-prone. Danger zones increase with ascending altitude. One winter sports enthusiast can trigger a medium-sized slab avalanche. Apart from the dangers of being buried in snow masses, the risks of being swept along and forced to take a fall also need consideration. Beware cornices on ridges. Glide-snow avalanches are difficult to forecast or estimate. They can trigger in all aspects below 2600 m at any time of day or night and grow to medium size. Caution below glide cracks. Loose-snow slides possible on very steep sunny slopes.

In northern regions above 1900 m, minor snowfall is possible. At high altitudes small trigger-prone snowdrift accumulations can be generated; on shady slopes older snowdrifts and near-surface weak layers are in isolated cases still prone to triggering. Due to warmth and solar radiation the snowpack is weakened during the day. The warm ground and wet snowpack base reinforce gliding snowpack movements, esp on E/S/W facing slopes. Below 1400 m there is very little snow on the ground.

Nocturnal hours: A cold front is moving in, skies will become gray but it will remain dry. Saturday daytime: Weak perturbance will bring cloudy skies, lower temperatures, a few showers in the northern ranges but only minor fresh snow above 1900 m. Further south it will be dry by and large with bright intervals in high alpine regions. At 2000 m: +1 degree. Light-to-moderate W/NW winds.

On Sunday morning mostly sunny, accompanied by thin cloudbanks at high altitude. In the afternoon the cloud cover will become heavier. Danger of dry-snow avalanches will decrease, of moist loose-snow avalanches no change is expected.