Aufbauende Umwandlung

The great early winter conditions south of the Inn are continuing. There is now another 20 cm of fresh powder locally. Avalanche conditions, snow quantity and snow quality are in an optimal range for early December.

This week, our newly acquired snow rummager repeats the confusion of symbols, abbreviations and numbers that can be found in a typical snow profile. If you know how, you can read all sorts of things from such a graphic and you don't always have to dig yourself to get an overview of the snow cover at a particular location. There's also a new profile from the Sellrain, so you can put your new knowledge into practice right away!

In the Southern and Central Alps there is often already a very thick snow cover. Weak layers that have been built up (old snow problem) can only be found on glaciers directly on the glacier ice. In other words, where the snow from early fall has remained. Otherwise, the snowpack structure is very good - and will most likely remain so in the snow-rich regions.

High Dorit and Erika have been bringing warm and practically precipitation-free weather for many days. On the sunny side, you can now find spring-like conditions with firn, depending on the altitude. On the shaded side, you can still catch a few turns of good powder - at least where the wind hasn't worked - despite a zero degree limit of over 3,000m at times. Why?

At first glance, snow profiles seem complicated. However, if you know a few basic terms, this impression is quickly put into perspective. But even if you can read profiles, it takes some practice to draw the relevant conclusions from them. The most important thing, however, is to be able to visualize the snow cover and its layering in the terrain. An example:

In the current season, it was noticeably more dangerous in sunny areas than in shady ones. This is due to a special form of weak layer formation known as the "cold on warm hazard pattern".

Snow cover without relevant weak layers is very rare, especially in the inner Alpine regions in early and high winter. In the current season, we are seeing this constellation in large parts of the Alpine arc. The snow cover is often compact and the old snow is stable.

The sporty winter is far from over and is picking up speed again these days. The snow flurries are now moving to higher altitudes with steeper slopes on average and are hoping for a few more turns of fluffy powder, followed by sizzling firn and summer firn, before surviving the summer in a snow profile hole on the highest glaciers in the Western Alps in heat torpor. So it's time to sum up:

In order to counteract the "I-only-understand-the-station" mentality when viewing snow profiles - whether in a snowflurry or on various avalanche warning service portals - we turn back to explanatory examples. As an introductory explanation, we recommend How to read and interpret a snow profile.

Some people may ask themselves: "Why wasn't it dangerous before the change in the weather in terms of the old snow problem? The weak layers were already pronounced before." The answer lies in the tension.

The Alpine region is still under the influence of an Omega high. The snow cover continues to build up at higher altitudes and on the shaded side, while there is something similar to firn on steep, lower southern slopes. Surface frost can also be found, but only rarely due to the low humidity in relation to the amount of radiant nights.

Periods of fine weather with wintry temperatures trigger massive build-up transformation processes in early winter, or when the snow cover is not very thick. This is usually not a problem during the fine weather phase, but is definitely problematic when the weather changes.