7.04.2014
After a partly sunny Friday, Saturday brought cloudy and foggy weather with occasional precipitation. The snow line was at around 2300 m, with snow falling a bit lower. However, the amount of precipitation was small, and a few centimeters of snow fell in the high mountains.
Rain soaked the snowpack, down to the ground in lower elevations. Sunday was variable, with local showers developing in the afternoon. The zero-degree isotherm height has not changed up to today.
Significant snow cover extends to about 1400 m on sun-facing slopes, and to around 900 m in shady areas. Snow depth is quite uneven. Above about 2000 m in the Julian Alps, snow depth is between 400 and around 600 cm, and at 1500 m up to about 250 cm. Elsewhere at 1500 m, it ranges from 40 to 120 cm, more in the western Karawanks. The snowpack is mostly well-settled, though in shady high-mountain locations it is still poorly settled in places. At night, snow freezes, and in the morning the snowpack is mostly hard; during the day with sunny weather it mostly softens, remaining frozen only in shade in the high mountains.
Avalanche danger is 1st degree in the morning and early forenoon, increasing during the day under solar influence.
The snowpack is mostly stable. Risk increases mainly towards noon and in the afternoon on sunlit slopes, where snow softens and becomes unstable due to the sun. Steep slopes are more dangerous.
Around midday, slab avalanches may occur on ridges. Lower down, individual full-depth avalanches of wet snowpack are possible.
Today will be mostly clear; tomorrow, the amount of high cloudiness will increase, and later in the day, especially in the west, cloud cover will thicken. In the evening, precipitation will begin in the Julian Alps area and the hills of northern Primorska and Notranjska, spreading eastward overnight to Wednesday. The snow line will gradually lower to around 1200 m. Up to around 10 cm of snow will fall, depending on elevation.
By Wednesday morning, precipitation in the mountains will mostly cease.
Avalanche conditions will not change today and tomorrow, and until Wednesday morning they will not change significantly due to the small amount of new snow. Only on Wednesday will the new snow layer potentially be unstable and able to slide on the old surface. Therefore, travel, especially on steeper high-mountain slopes, will become more hazardous.
The next snowpack report will be issued on Wednesday, 9.4.2014 in the afternoon.
General avalanche danger is 2nd degree on the European 5-level scale.
Source: ARSO