Author: Jeffrey McCabe

Last week’s weather: variable. Mostly gray skies and rainy, with brief intervals of improvement and dispersed clouds (23-25 May). Weather station Hahnenkamm (Reutte): for a station at 1670m, still enormous amounts of snow The predominantly gloomy, cold, wet weather will persist for a bit. Rainfall up to about 2500 m in most parts of Tirol. Tirol’s…

Still unstable and cool The variable weather conditions, rather cool and moist for this juncture of the season, persist. Weather review: highly variable! A comparative review: the winter’s greatest snow depths are frequently being measured in high alpine regions currently. Impressive amounts of fresh snow in the mountains Conditions as in deep winter at Regensburger…

Winter still reigns in the mountains Since the end of April, extremely variable, moist and unseasonably cold weather conditions have prevailed. An atypical “melting display” for this juncture of the season: increasing snow depths in May at 2060 m altitude in the Tux Alps. In addition, the plummeting temperatures at the end of April are…

Onset of winter at the end of April, short improvement at the beginning of May, and then winter will be back again: Following heavy foehn impact, winter struck again on 26 April. Lots of fresh snow in some parts of Tirol The southern regions won the prize: between Friday 26.04 and Monday 29.04, there was…

Current situation and trend The April weather persists: Current unstable and (for backcountry skiers) infelicitous weather conditions will persist for a bit. Nonetheless, a marked change is about to take place in air masses, according to forecasts of ZAMG: the southerly foehn system is expected to collapse on Friday, 26 April. A cold front will…

The sunny and wind-calm weather over the Easter holidays, coupled with top backcountry touring conditions in the mountains, are over. Tirol currently lies in the path of a powerful southerly air current, wedged between two low-pressure systems over eastern Europe and the western Mediterranean. As a consequence, clouds are accumulating along the Main Alpine Ridge…

Easter present: It’s hard to believe, but it really couldn’t be much better: a predominantly stable snowpack. High-pressure weather system. Mostly clear nocturnal skies with adequate outgoing radiation. Rather dry air masses. All of the ingredients for really good springtime conditions, provided one leaves early in the morning and finishes the tour relatively early. At…

Zooming in on the already mentioned near-surface weak layers, we were able to bring the picture into sharper focus. These layers were responsible for several avalanches involving persons in the regions where recent snowfall has been heaviest (see last blog). The avalanches were without consequences for the backcountry skiers. Slab avalanches and settling noises were…

A few items of current importance, as a supplement to the last blog. Particularly in springtime, the interplay of weather parameters – humidity, global radiation, air temperature – have decisive effects on avalanche danger. Even tiny changes in the weather can have huge effects on avalanche danger, both in positive and negative ways. A glance…

Current situation & outlook The current avalanche situation is quite favorable over widespread areas. The greatest danger continues to stem from wet-snow and glide-snow avalanches. Small-to-medium glide-snow avalanches are possible below about 2200 m in all aspects. Wet loose-snow avalanches are likely only below 1800 m at the current temperatures. In East Tirol the zero-degree…