Snow report Oberstdorf, 02/12/2016

Snow condition

Maybe even only 1 star. Just about rideable on the north side of the valley. At 1200m on the north side maybe half a meter but often nothing, depending on the wind. Further up, it's the same story from a lot to nothing from time to time. A disaster for February. Spring skiing will be canceled up to higher middle altitudes if not much happens soon. One or two warm days and sunshine and the snow is gone again - at least up to medium altitudes.

Snow quality

Wednesday was a storm and snowfall. Thursday then blue sky and cold, fluffy, great drifting snow, Friday then high-speed set and tonight again about 15cm of new snow. In the valley it was maybe 10cm and then quite wet, but not slowing down and easy to ski. No blower from mid-altitude upwards, but soft and creamy.

Thursday was surprisingly unremarkable, despite the storm on Wednesday, which would soon have blown me away on the evening tour up the Hochgrat and I wasn't expecting anything good for Thursday. Quite the opposite today. In many cases, the 10-15 cm of new snow came off immediately over a large area under the slightest pressure, and at a rapid pace. Although this only affected the fresh snow from last night, I was still very surprised - LLB was only 1/2 a "release" today with a large additional load. I didn't notice any of this... Although no avalanches with a risk of burial have occurred, it's easy enough to get carried away in steep terrain.

Overall impression

It's been 4 good days, but the situation is always hanging by a thread, as there's simply no snow cover that gives you the certainty that it will hold for a while - at the moment it's raining again up to around 1200m. Today was extremely back and forth anyway. Snowfall and wind in the morning, then sun and calm - before more snow at around 2pm. Then sudden gusts of around 50km/h and blue skies within 15 minutes, before it started to rain in the valley at 5pm. February, mind you.