Snow conditions in the mountains 29.10.2012

Due to strong cooling, the snow line dropped to the lowlands on Saturday evening and overnight into Sunday. It snowed occasionally until this morning, Monday. In the mountains, 20 to 40 cm of snow fell. It snowed on bare ground. Initially, the snow was wet and stuck to the ground, later it became dry and the wind blew it into drifts.

Currently, conditions in the mountains are fully wintery. The avalanche danger is low, except on steep grassy slopes where individual wet snow slabs can slide. The ground is still warm and the snow cover has refrozen at the interface with the bare surface.

Tomorrow it will still be cold, then it will warm up quickly at higher elevations.

The freezing level will rise above 2500 m by Wednesday evening. The snow will therefore refreeze and begin to settle and transform rapidly. Precipitation will start on Wednesday evening. The snow line will initially be around 1500 m above sea level, but will rise to about 2000 m during Thursday. In the high mountains, 20 to 50 cm of snow is expected by Friday morning. Avalanche danger will increase, new drifts will form.

New report will be issued on Friday, 2.11.2012.



General avalanche danger is 1 on the European 5-level scale.



Source: ARSO