Snow conditions 12.1.2015

On Friday and Saturday it was warm and dry in the mountains. There was some sun too, but due to hazy cloud cover, which was occasionally quite dense, the sun lacked power. In the mid-mountains and on southern slopes of the high mountains, snow crusted and melted. On Sunday it was cloudy, gradually cooling down. Up to around 10 cm of snow fell, in the northwest only up to 5. Snow froze with the cooling.

At 2500 m elevation in the Julian Alps there is around 110 cm of snow, at 1500 m around 40 cm, elsewhere around 20 cm.

Southern slopes are bare in many places even above 1500 m, or covered with a few cm of new snow. Due to wind, snowpack depth is quite uneven.

The snowpack is generally soft on the surface, but new snow is wind-packed, so old frozen base is on the surface in many places. On wind-exposed high mountain sites, surface is icy in places.

Avalanche danger is 1st degree.

Snowpack is stable and frozen due to cooling. Hardly possible to trigger avalanches, greater danger currently from slips.



Until midweek dry and fairly sunny. Warming up a bit again, but cooling by Wednesday morning. Snowpack will crust on sun-exposed slopes during the day tomorrow, freeze at night.

Avalanche conditions will not change much.

Next report published on Wednesday, 14.1.2015.



General avalanche danger is 1st degree on the European 5-degree scale.



Source: ARSO