Snow report Livigno, 01/04/2019

Snow condition

The snow cover thickness increases with the elevation. In the alpine, the snow surface is strongly wind effected, in windward sides and close to the ridges, the snow is hard; in leeward and in wind sheltered areas, the snow surface is loose. Along and below the treeline, depending on the expositions, breakable melt-freeze crusts, wind affected and hard snow alternate each others; only on sheltered slopes, few centimetres of loose snow, cover an old breakable crust. In the alpine, except for Southern slopes, persistent weak layers are recorded within the snowpack but are quite difficult to trigger. The snow cover base is well settled at all elevations.

Snow quality

Unfortunately, the strong and stormy winds destroyed the nice snow conditions and now the snow cover is strongly wind effected. The best off-piste skiing is on the sheltered slopes where the wind activity was lighter. Below the treeline breakable melt-freeze crust formed which are not easy to ski and only on shadow slopes few centimeters of loose snow cover the crust.

The strong winds effected the snow cover, the few loose snow has been wind-drifted creating small-medium sized wind slabs, which were not really reactive (except while forming). We saw few natural slab avalanches and the avalanche danger level during the whole week was 2-moderate.

Overall impression

The snow height is quite good and it is possible to ski until the bottom with an occasional stone exposure. On the other hand, the winds strongly effected the snowcover, and now only on sheltered slopes, is possibile to find nice snow to ski...