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PowderAlert 5 2022/23 | Last exit, Austria!

An alarm like an Elfriede Jelinek film adaptation!

by Lars Oelmann 01/31/2023
The alarming title sounds like an arthouse adaptation of an Elfriede Jelinek book and evokes associations with chamber plays in which beer-bellied men in Burgenland struggle with their fate in dark pubs.

But then an unforeseen event occurs and shakes up the gloomy backdrop!

Winter drags on and everywhere you look you're crawling along at the average level. At the campfires of the freeride tribe, old men tell their stories from the 2000s and the youngsters marvel in disbelief at legends such as "Nordstau" and 1m of fresh snow down to below 1000m, only to laugh and say: There's no such thing, because today was really epic, because we only had to carry from 1500m!

The parallels to the aforementioned arthouse movie are striking, because there is a real northern storm on the horizon, which throws everything into disarray. And essentially only in the forgotten part of Austria, where people drink Gösser and Stiegl and the IPAs from Innsbruck are just stories from abroad.

Alert period and areas

It's snowing from eastern Switzerland to the Schneeberg, with the core from Salzburg eastwards.

The alert lasts until Saturday evening. In the west with breaks, in the east there are only different intensities.

Wind

Where it's snowing heavily - in the east - it's also extremely windy. We're just scraping past gale-force gusts from the west. It pushes far into the Tauern

Snow line

Powder almost all the way down, almost all the time. On Friday it may snow up to 1000m in the foothills of the Alps. In the valleys in the Alps, the snow line tends to be lower all the time.

The amounts

From central Switzerland to the east, 20-50cm maximum, and in several batches, so that you should find little untracked snow at the weekend, as there is visibility in between.

From Arlberg to Innsbruck about 40-70cm, whereby outliers like the Nordkette can have 20cm more when the traffic jam hits. In the east of North Tyrol you are somehow between the core and the western border and the fluctuation range in the models is enormous.

In the core, from Salzburgerland to the east, there will be 70-100cm and in the reservoirs such as Salzkammergut and Hochschwab it will be 120-150cm or possibly 20cm more. That should cure any lack of snow cover there.

Where should I go?

I would go to the core from Friday, because there is a base in some areas there and a pretty big wave comes in on Friday. You should be able to ride in the trees on Saturday. Thursday is probably only nice on meadows.

You should stay below the tree line on all days because of the storm and snowfall and of course be aware of the avalanche risk. In the west there will also be breaks between the snow showers, e.g. in Switzerland the sun will come out on Friday afternoon.

Mid-term

From Saturday to Sunday it will ease briefly before it gets even colder and possibly a new alarm is due in the east on Monday. Perhaps there will only be a refresh below 30cm, but there should be little wind and cold blowers. Some models are predicting well over 2m of fresh snow in combination with this alert. Let's see.

If you can, you should take the week off. On Tuesday or Wednesday at the latest, it should break open with further cold temperatures. It then looks rather dry and then you can also get up high on the Tauernkamm.

Snow height tip game

The snow height tip game takes place at the station "Altaussee Loser (1573m)" from 31.1. to 4.2. 22:00h: Post your tip in the PowderGuide.com forum by Wednesday, February 1 at 22:00 -> Gewinnspiele !

Powder to the people!

Your Oracle

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This article has been automatically translated by DeepL with subsequent editing. If you notice any spelling or grammatical errors or if the translation has lost its meaning, please write an e-mail to the editors.

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