SnowFlurry 4 2019/20 | What happened to the snow cover during the long period of good weather?

Clear nights allowed the snow surface to cool down considerably, which favored the accumulating transformation. Angular crystals have formed in the upper 20 cm (fresh snow around 2.12.) of the snow cover. That's why it crunched so nicely when skiing recently, as if you were skiing on sugar.

This layer poses a certain problem after the fresh snowfall on 9 December and the following days. The bound fresh snow or drift snow came to rest on soft, angular layers and thus formed a weak layer.

Snow profile Längental from 7.12.19, 2133m, NW

Red

Rounded crystals lie close to the ground. This snow originates from the end of October - beginning of November.

The low temperature gradient in the lower layers favors the decomposing transformation. This means that the crystals transform more and more into round, small grains and create a good base. The layers close to the ground are generally negligible in this profile, as they would hardly be disturbable with a snow thickness of 150 cm.

Violet

The following layers are from the precipitation in mid-November and are very compact.

Grey

Wind cover, drift snow.

Blue

A thin layer of angular crystals can be seen on the surface, which was caused by the above-mentioned radiation on clear nights.

The yellow layers are responsible for the ECTN result. A partial fracture occurred in both weak layers.

Conclusion

In total, the snowpack was compact at the time of the profile, with only isolated, rather negligible weak layers in the layers close to the surface. After the precipitation of the last few days, these layers should be kept in mind in addition to the fresh drift snow, as well as the angular crystals that formed on the former snow surface during the fine weather period.