Snow conditions in the mountains 1.2.2013

From Wednesday, the weather in the mountains was mostly sunny and quite warm.

The air was dry, so the snow softened during the day only on sunny slopes and on plateaus, while in shady areas it remained dry or frozen.

The snow was settling and transforming, only in shady areas it remained poorly transformed.

The snow cover mostly still extends to the lowlands. The snow is mostly covered with a crust on the surface, which formed due to daily warming and nightly freezing, and in the high mountains also due to wind. In many places, it supports human weight. In shady areas, the snow is still mostly dry and also soft. In wind-exposed places in the high mountains, there are numerous drifts. At 2500 m in the Julian Alps, there is up to about 230 cm of snow, at 1500 m up to about 120 cm. Elsewhere in our mountains, there is 30 to about 50 cm of snow at 1500 m. At 1000 m, the snow cover is thick up to about 30 cm.

The avalanche danger is mostly level 2. It increases slightly during the day on sunny slopes, where the snow cover becomes somewhat unstable due to warming and the influence of the sun. Below an altitude of about 1000 m, the danger is mostly level 1. Dangerous are mainly places with wind-blown snow and steeper slopes, where you can trigger an avalanche by loading the snow cover. We do not expect spontaneous avalanches, except for some smaller sluffs.

Today it will still be mostly sunny, but it will start to cloud over from the west. It will still be warm, the freezing level will be at an altitude of about 2700 m. At night, precipitation will start to appear, which will intensify tomorrow and are expected to end on Sunday morning. The snow line will initially be at an altitude between 1000 and 1400 m, but it will gradually lower during the day and around mid-afternoon it will start snowing down to the lowlands. In the Julian Alps, up to about 40 cm of snow will fall, somewhat less in the western Karavanke, elsewhere mostly from 10 to good 20 cm. It will snow on a crusty base, so the new snow will adhere better to it below about 1500 m, where there will initially also be some rain or the snow will be wetter, higher up the bond between the new and old snow will be weaker. Therefore, the avalanche danger will increase considerably mainly in the high mountains, somewhat less in the mid-mountains. We therefore advise against visiting the mountains at the end of the week.

The new report will be issued on Monday, 4.2.2013



The general avalanche danger is level 2 on the European five-level scale.



Source: ARSO