Author: Jeffrey McCabe

First things first:  strong winds are generating mostly small, often trigger-sensitive snowdrift accumulations at high altitudes. Caution urged especially on shady, steep slopes. A cold front on 19-20. November brought generally 10-20 cm of fresh snow, locally a bit more. Fresh snow: 19-20.11.2020 Plus, in major areas of precipitation along the Main Alpine Ridge, strong…

 Lots of fresh snow in the mountains A cold front moving swiftly across Tirol is bringing heavy precipitation to the southeastern regions of the land. ZAMG Weather Service anticipates 50-80 mm of precipitation between Monday (26.10.2020) at 6:00 pm and Tuesday (27.10.2020) at 9:00 am. As temperatures rapidly drop, the snowfall level on the Main…

 Snowpack analysis in high alpine terrain Since our last blog we have swooped far and wide in the state helicopter, dug deep in the high altitude snows in order to construct snow profiles of Tirol’s high alpine terrain. Part of this involves snowpack stability tests in order to find out how well the disparate layers…

Since yesterday (6 May) we have reports both from Emergency Headquarters of Tirol and from winter sports enthusiasts of additional, sometimes large-spread avalanches: Saumspitze, Verwall (about 3000 m, north), Mittlerer Spiegelkogel, Ötztal Alps (about 3300 m, north), Schrankkogel, Stubai Alps (about 2800 m, northeast), Taschachferner, Pitztal (about 2800 m, north) Schartenkogel, Stubai Alps (2800 m,…

Avalanches involving persons Since last Sunday (3 May), four avalanches have been registered in which persons were involved. Initial analyses show that recently generated upper-level weak layers combined with snowdrifts deposited on top of them were the main cause of these releases. The weak layers formed due to danger pattern 4 (cold on warm) and…

April ends, April weather starts The unusually long period of fine weather including extremely low in precipitation came to an end last weekend starting on 25.04. Since then, variable April conditions have reigned, with the long awaited precipitation. Last weekend: ongoing shuffle of sunshine, clouds and precipitation. Griesskogel Group (photo: 27.04.2020) Precipitation on 28-29 April,…

Ongoingly dry, sunny, warm Evaluations by the ZAMG Weather Service show that meteorologically speaking this has been one of the warmest and driest in history. “In Innsbruck there has been 27 millimetres of precipitation (72 percent less than average) up till now this spring. It was drier than this only three times since the year…

Short review of weather Fine weather persisted for a month, was briefly interrupted during the night of Easter Monday (13-14.04). A cold front cooled the air masses, brought a few centimeters of fresh snow to far-reaching areas of Tirol above the timberline. On 14.04 the sun swiftly regained the upper hand. What was striking was…

No sign of April weather ‘Comes in like a lion…’ No sign of that this April. Thus far it is revealing only its very best side: unseasonably warm and dry. The period of extreme dryness will persist, briefly interrupted next week by a weak cold front. Subsequently, high-pressure weather conditions will return, according to current…