Snow conditions 15.12.2014

Already on Friday it became cloudy again and in the mountains it was quite foggy with a strong southwest wind, which has already weakened somewhat by today. The snow line was at an altitude of around 1900 m, air humidity was high. The snow hardened and lower down melted, transformed and settled, somewhat less above the 0-degree thermal line.

In places in the Julians a couple of centimeters of snow fell.

At an altitude of 2500 m there is up to around 120 cm of snow in the Julian Alps, at 1500 m around 20 cm. Elsewhere there is less snow, at 1500 m it is mostly bare ground, and in many places even higher.

There is relatively little snow in the mountains. The condition of the snowpack is quite varied. Crust predominates, which in the high mountains can bear human weight in places. There is some drifted snow, lower down the snow is soft and wet. On wind-exposed sites it is quite scoured.

Avalanche danger is mostly 1st degree.

The snowpack is mostly stable and consolidated. You can only trigger a small avalanche on steeper high mountain slopes, especially in places with drifted snow and under high snowpack loading.



Tonight and tomorrow it will be cloudy and foggy on the peaks. Occasional light precipitation, above around 1300 m as snow. Tomorrow precipitation will be somewhat more frequent in the area of the Julians and western Karawanks, in the night to Wednesday it will occur mostly everywhere. The snow line will drop to around 700 m altitude. Up to around 10 cm of snow may fall. The new snow is expected to bond poorly in the high mountains with the mostly crusty base, so the avalanche risk will increase somewhat there. Spontaneous avalanching is not expected, but only the possibility of triggering an avalanche of new, especially drifted snow on steeper slopes by yourself.

The next report will be published on Friday, 19.12.2014.



General avalanche danger is 2nd degree on the European five-level scale.



Source: ARSO