Snow report Oberstdorf, 01/23/2021

Snow condition

On Thursday and Friday quite a bit went away, about 1/3 to 1/2, but due to the settling almost every bush was flattened. Tonight a little more, but with a lot of wind, so unevenly distributed. But there's still enough for forest above 900m.

Snow quality

Highly variable in small areas. Settled powder, drifting snow, wind cover, exposed (mostly non-load-bearing) melt crust. The fresh snow was already a bit damp due to the temperatures around 0°. But apart from the melt crust, everything was quite good to ski.

I did a sliding block test (not professional or standardized) on a slope at almost 30°, no drifting snow, 1100m. The fresh snow couldn't be triggered, but after 5 jumps the thing came off at the bottom. So it's still a weak layer, and you could trigger small clods of drift snow while driving, so that's how I would judge it for today and tomorrow: I don't see drift snow as a big problem up to the tree line, as it is usually small-scale due to the low amount of fresh snow. Wet snow and generally old snow are more of a problem on the south side, the latter at the transition from a little to a lot of snow.

Overall impression

Collecting altitude meters on the small local mountain. And the snow was better than I expected it to be when I was shoveling this morning.