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.

N74270311
BULLETIN FOR ESTIMATING THE RISK OF AVALANCHES
FOR HAUTE SAVOIE
Valid off marked and open trails
FOR FRIDAY 28 MARCH 2008
(Drafted Thursday, March 27)

Meteo-France informs you that due to a social movement, this issue may not be released Friday and Saturday. We ask you to excuse us.

ESTIMATE OF RISK UNTIL FRIDAY EVENING:
All massive Haute-Savoie: limited risk (level 2) that evolves marked risk (level 3).

WEATHER OVERVIEW UNTIL FRIDAY EVENING:
Good weather, but the sun is sailing in the morning of Friday with quite thick clouds in the afternoon.

Isothermal 0 1100 2000 m.
Wind around 2000 m: Slow.
Wind around 4000 m: Slow in the night and then northwest 60 km / h.

SNOW CONDITIONS:
Thanks to the recent snowfall, snow was quite normal for the end of March. The ground is white at low altitudes and can even make departures skis or snowshoes to toe when about 1200 m, with attention to rocks and other obstacles barely hidden.

Quality of snow for Friday:
At daybreak, snow will crust at low altitude while above it will be remained cold, and even an excellent powder in the high mountains. During the day, the snow will become progressively wetter in the sunny slopes mid-altitude until about 2000 to 2500 m depending on the thickness of sails cloudy and direction of slopes.

STABILITY OF SNOW COVER:
Risk of slabs fairly limited but increasing spontaneous activity in the sun.

The important layer of cold snow fell in a week, thick 2000 m from 50 to 60 cm on average, continues to build gradually. However, Friday, a skier can still trigger rare wind slabs in areas where snow has remained cold. It will be guard in the very steep slopes still loaded with powdery snow as a small casting could become significant in the course of its trajectory.
It will be even more guard in the very steep slopes of northern slopes above 2000 meters, because very few triggers large slabs carrying more than one meter of snow are possible, especially if the snow is relatively low.

On the other hand, the strong spring sun, it is not too veiled, will cause quite a lot of spontaneous avalanches in the sunny slopes. This mainly heavy snow avalanche on average mountain until 2000 2500m. Moreover rare spontaneous departures in powdery snow will be possible at higher elevations.

TREND LATER RISK:
Saturday, the risk of outbreak of slabs drops. By contrast, activity in avalanche spontaneous wet snow will be on the rise.

Meteo-France updates this newsletter everyday at 16h or sooner if conditions warrant nivométéorologiques.