Snow conditions in the mountains 15.4.2011

After the last snowfall, relatively cold weather has persisted in the mountains. Occasional local showers have occurred, so locally a centimeter of snow may have fallen. The snowline was mostly around 1500 m above sea level, today it is at 1300 m above sea level. The snow in the high mountains has frozen and is covered with a crust. Where the wind blew the new snow during the last snowfall, the old base has become icy.

In the Julian Alps, at 2500 m there is up to about 310 cm of snow, at 1500 m up to about 40 cm. The most snow is in the western Julian Alps. Elsewhere in our mountains, at 1500 m snow is only in gullies.

South-facing slopes are mostly bare even up to around 2000 m. The snow cover under the new snow is well transformed and mostly refrozen.

Avalanche danger is mostly level 1. The snow is well transformed and stable, only the top layer is not yet transformed, but it is too shallow to increase the possibility of triggering avalanches at low temperatures. The surface is mostly hard and sometimes icy or covered with a crust, under which there is up to 10 cm of softer snow.

Mostly dry and cold weather will continue. At the end of the week, the snowline will rise somewhat and on Sunday it will be temporarily around 1900 m, then it will cool slowly again on the night to Monday. Because there will be quite patchy cloud cover today and tomorrow, the sun will not influence the transformation of snow on south-facing slopes as much. With individual showers, a centimeter of snow may fall locally. The sun's influence will be greater on Sunday. Then the snow on south-facing slopes will soften during the day up to around 2100 m above sea level.

Avalanche danger will increase slightly during the day mainly in places with wind-drifted snow on sun-exposed spots.

The next report will be issued on Wednesday, 20 April 2011.



General avalanche danger is level 1 on the European five-level scale.



Source: ARSO