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PowderAlert 14 2018/19 | Late winter powder the second!

Unfortunately with a rising snow line.

by Lars Oelmann 03/13/2019
Ullr heralds the second round of the late winter retreat battles and this time sends us useful amounts of precipitation. Unfortunately, it no longer has the power to keep it cold throughout and only higher up does the powder survive the warming.

Alert period and areas

This alert goes from France to the Dachstein, with the most snow falling from northern France to the Arlberg and the peaks there should be in the French-Swiss border area.

The alert goes until Friday evening, although it should stop snowing in the far west by noon on Friday.

Wind

A storm will bring us the snow. Heavy squalls are also possible in the high mountains. This means snow up to over the main ridge, the largest amounts just before the main ridge and not in congested areas on the edge of the Alps, and generally little chance of blower pow.

Snow line

This unfortunately has the potential to disappoint. It starts at around 1000m or even below, but goes up to 1500m in the west tomorrow and up to just under 1600m or even 1900m in the western foothills of the Alps on Friday. In the east, it will stay below 1000m for a long time and won't really go much above 1200m on Friday either, so you can find powder there even at lower altitudes. Towards Tyrol or Arlberg, you're caught between these two extremes.

Inneralpin in the west, the rise is significantly delayed and I would also expect a snow line below 1500m on Friday in Goms or Nordbünden.

Unfortunately, the rise makes for "Creamcheese on top" or "upside-down" skiing conditions, as heavy fresh snow may well lie on top of light snow. This is not only silly, but in combination with the storm and the warming, it will also make for a very dangerous avalanche situation.

The amounts

From the Hautes Alpes to the Arlberg, 60-80cm are coming and as the snow line is rising and the whole thing is getting quite heavy, there will probably be no surprises (upwards). Up to a meter may also fall in the French-Swiss border area, as many models see more abundant precipitation there.

East of the Arlberg it will be 40-60cm, less in the far east. In the south, there will only be snow near the main ridge, but possibly a surprising amount there.

Where should I go?

Thursday in your favorite trees, Friday rather in higher trees in the west, preferably in the inner Alps or in northern Grisons. In the east, you can also speculate on treeskiing a little lower down.

Saturday it's clearing up and due to the massive warming you have to get as high up as possible and as defensively as possible on a flat glacier. Due to the extreme warming with zero degree limit towards 3000m in a short time, this will be very ...uh... exciting. Sunday it will close again.

Medium-term

Maybe after the warming there will be another cold student alert on Monday/Tuesday. What happens then is not yet clear, but it looks much drier. Maybe we'll get lucky and it will be cooler after all.

PowderGuide.com!

Your oracle

The prediction game was already finished before the alarm and it doesn't go until Tuesday, but until Friday night, predictions have to be submitted until 3pm tomorrow afternoon.

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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