Stability tests on the 29th at the  Tête du Torraz in the Aravis at 1810 meters altitude. The slab was due to drifting and was resting on a weak layer of angular grains.

Following fresh snow (20cm from 1000 meters altitude, up to 80cm locally) and very strong winds the avalanche risk is High over much of the Northern French Alps and the northern half of the Southern F

The Savoie and Haute-Savoie prefectures have warned backcountry travellers of a dangerous avalanche situation in all the mountain ranges of the departments for Tuesday 24th December.

Old snow problems, aka persistent weak layers (PWL) are a fragile layer in the snow pack that takes a very long time to stabilize.

Meteo France has placed the Isere, Savoie  departments on an orange alert for avalanche risk for Saturday (14 Dec 2019).

Typically the snowline is some 400 meters below the zero isotherm level. So if the zero isotherm (freezing point) is 2000 meters precipitation will fall as snow to 1600 meters.

It is a sign of winter. The French avalanche bulletin service has restarted from the 30th October 2019.

Initial reports were of many buried on the open black Kandahar piste at Crans Montana.

An orange avalanche alert has been issued for the French Alpes.

Meteo France has issued an orange avalanche alert for the Eastern and Central Pyrenees where up to a meter to 1.