Avalanche bulletin and weather forecast Haute Savoie

This avalanche translation of the Meteo France avalanche bulletin is produced mainly through an automated translation tool.  Please use it in conjunction with the French bulletin found at the above link.

N74190311
SNOW AND AVALANCHE BULLETIN FOR HAUTE SAVOIE
(VALID OFF OF OPEN AND MARKED RUNS)
PREPARED ON WEDNESDAY 19 MARCH
FOR THURSDAY 20 MARCH
ESTIMATE OF RISK UNTIL THURSDAY EVENING:

All massive Haute-Savoie: limited risk (level 2).

WEATHER OVERVIEW UNTIL THURSDAY EVENING:
Wednesday night cloudy with a few snow showers. Thursday: quite sunny with a sun increasingly warped.

Isothermal 0 800 1000 m.
Wind at 2000 m: North-east, 40 decreasing in the afternoon.
Wind at 4000 m: North 70 km/h.

SNOW CONDITIONS:
Snow is correct for a mid-March over 1700m, weak at low altitude. It is fitting the skis to 1300 m in northern cold in the valleys. In South direction, it's best to climb to 1800 m in the absence of sub-layer to a lower altitude.

Quality of snow Thursday: Lowest approximately 1800 m, snow will be hard crust or with a thin layer of powder on the surface, then it will become progressively wetter in the sunny slopes. At higher elevations, snow will remain colder, either hard or crusty on southern slope until about 2500 m, a powdery more or less packed, or a hard snow by the wind.

STABILITY OF SNOW COVER:
Few slabs, but can be voluminous.

The snowfall from last weekend is now rather well consolidated. However, a few slabs still persist in some places. These slabs tend to be thick and not very easy to trigger.

The main risk will therefore trigger a slab avalanche with the passage of a person and especially with the passage of a group of people, mainly in northern slopes above 2000 meters. These slabs will be sparse but could be quite bulky.

As for spontaneous avalanches, they will be rare. This mostly isolated departures of wet snow avalanches in steep mountain slopes average, especially on sunny slopes.

TREND LATER RISK:
Friday, the risk will increase strongly.
Meteo-France updates this newsletter everyday at 16h or sooner if conditions warrant nivométéorologiques.