Saisonreport

In the season report, we traditionally look back on the past winter. The snow conditions in 2022/23 were anything but good, although late snowfall in the spring made us feel a little better towards the end. However, the May powder doesn't hide the fact that it was a difficult season with too many sharks and too little snow. Nevertheless, there were of course some highlights, both on the mountain and on PowderGuide.com.

The 21st PowderGuide season was rather mixed in many respects: the pandemic is still giving us a hard time and more snow would have been nice. But as always, there were also good sides: Lots of sunshine for extended tours, the odd powder day in between, and of course the exchange with the PG community!

The skiing winter is not over yet, but it is slowly coming to an end. This can be recognized by the fact that the first reviews of the season are already available, for example from the SLF.

The Working Group of Austrian Avalanche Warning Services has published its seasonal report for winter 2019/20. The report not only contains statistical evaluations of the past avalanche winter, but also many detailed and impressively illustrated analyses of specific accidental avalanches. In addition to the LWDs of the Austrian federal states, the SLF and the LWD South Tyrol are also represented with guest contributions.

The winter of 2014/15 was characterized by an exceptionally snow-poor early winter with correspondingly below-average snow depths. Over the entire winter, snow depths were only just above average above 2200 m and above average on the southern slopes of the Alps. These marked differences in snow depth depending on altitude were caused by above-average temperatures, which repeatedly melted away the snow at medium and low altitudes. With the exception of February, the months of November to March were all too warm, and early winter was record warm in some cases. Despite the excessively warm winter, large parts of the Central Plateau and Jura experienced an average number of snow days thanks to a favorable combination of cold and precipitation. The snow cover build-up was weak in the inner Alps, but also at times on the northern slopes of the Alps, whereas it was much more stable on the southern slopes of the Alps. Compared to the long-term average, last winter was more dangerous. Danger level 3 (considerable) was forecast more than normal, level 2 (moderate) less. Two major avalanche accidents led to an above-average number of avalanche fatalities overall. By April 15, 32 people had died in avalanches.

A Mediterranean low brings a base to the south, while the north hopes that even small animals make dung.