Snow conditions 27.4.2012

On Wednesday and Thursday as well as this morning, it was sunny, gradually warming up considerably. The snow line is today above 3000 m.

Therefore, the snow cover has crusted even in the high mountains, only in shady gullies of the high mountains has the snow remained dry in places. Overnight, snow froze higher up. Lower down, the snow cover remains wet and soaked through to the ground. Especially from sun-facing slopes, individual slabs of newer snow, which has already somewhat bonded, have still been releasing.

The consolidated snow cover reaches sea level altitude of about 1400 m, but there is little snow there. In the high mountains, snow in shady locations is mostly soft and light, elsewhere in the high mountains it softens during the day, but at night freezes again quite high up. Lower down it is wet and much more metamorphosed. On wind-exposed locations, the snow is quite wind-packed, especially on northern and eastern sides of ridges, cornices are frequent. In total, at 1500 m a.s.l. around 30 cm of snow, at 2500 m in the Julian Alps around 230 cm. Avalanche danger is primarily in the Julian Alps above about 1700 m at 3rd level, lower down and elsewhere in our mountains 1st to 2nd level, depending on altitude. Especially dangerous are steep slopes and places with wind-drifted snow, where a snow avalanche can be triggered even by minor additional load. Lower down, wet snow glide avalanches are also possible. We expect them primarily on steeper sun-facing slopes midday and in the afternoon.

Quite warm and sunny weather will continue. On Sunday there will be somewhat more cloudiness, so the sun's influence will not be as strong as tomorrow. The snow cover will settle and melt lower down. Spontaneous slab formation will slowly decrease, but the snow cover in the high mountains will remain potentially unstable especially during the day.

New report will be issued on Monday, 30.4.2012.



General avalanche danger is 3rd level on the European five-level scale.



Source: ARSO