Lea Hartl

At first glance, the Pieps Pro+ shovel is a standard avalanche shovel of a slightly larger type. The telescopic handle locks into place with the familiar "push-button system" and is 81 cm long when extended. The shovel blade is 25cm wide (=relatively large). The special feature: A saw is hidden in the shovel handle.

The Tambora volcano is located on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa. In April 1815, Tambora erupted, with far-reaching consequences not only for the surrounding area, but for the whole world. The WeatherBlog recently read a book about it.

In contrast to the rest of the winter so far, the Alps have been in a north-easterly flow for a while now (apart from a few foehns), which brings relatively cool weather. Most recently, a drop of cold air paid us a visit. What's it all about and why are we not feeling the otherwise frequent Atlantic influence at the moment?

The WeatherBlog has stumbled across some strange conspiracy theories and is calling for reflection and not believing everything on the internet. It's a bit like the supposedly waist-deep snow on Instagram that only reaches as far as the second buckle on your ski boots. What's more, the ECMWF now has a powerful computer and is better at forecasting.

The meteorological winter (December, January, February) has been over since Monday. In Austria, it went down in the statistics as the second warmest winter in recorded history at 2.7° above the long-term average, and in Germany it was also 3.4° warmer than the average. In Austria, only 2006/07 was warmer, 2013/14 was just as warm. This means that five of the 10 warmest winters in the 250-year measurement history have occurred in the last 10 years. Nevertheless, and because the weather is known to not always stick to the calendar, it was, is and will be relatively wintry, at least in the mountains. We take a closer look at this below.

I have a cell phone with me when I'm skiing, if only for safety reasons. Of course, taking pictures and listening to music on your smartphone isn't bad either. Sometimes I take a helmet camera with me, or maybe a real camera, or both, or an MP3 player, or a GPS, or a radio, or something else from the electronic fleet that many of us have at home. Unfortunately, none of this really works well with the avalanche transceiver. Why is that and what should I look out for?

Last weekend was interesting in terms of weather and regrettable in terms of skiing. After heavy rain during the night, temperatures of around 20 degrees were measured in many places during the day on Sunday. The leader in Austria was Pottschach (Lower Austria) with 23.2° - a new national record for February. What was going on?

The Mediterranean lows that have been so frequent in recent winters have been rare so far this season. Low pressure system Virginie ends the west/northwest trend, at least in the (very) short term, and the south-east can be happy.

Low pressure system Ruzica disturbed the carnival revelers in the German carnival strongholds on Rose Monday. Low Susanna then put the finishing touches to the whole thing last night. Together with a strong föhn wind, the carnival in the Alps was also blown away by the wind.

A fundamental gender injustice that no women's rights movement has been able to change in the slightest is the fact that women have a harder time urinating in the open air for anatomical reasons. Woe betide those who wear dungarees, strap their avalanche transceivers over their suspenders and pull two layers of fleece over them.

The tried-and-tested Link Group Communications radios from BCA (Backcountry Access) have been available since last season in a version tailored to Europe, which is adapted to local regulations in terms of frequency range (PRM) and transmission power. The Link devices are specially designed for skiers.

If you want to know something about the stability of the snow cover and would rather not test it by driving into it, you need alternatives. The basic principle of snow cover tests is similar to driving in: You hit it or otherwise provide a load and see what happens. Unlike driving in, you do this in a controlled environment so that you can actually have a look first and don't get buried straight away.