Avalanche risk for the Isere has just been revised a notch above forecast. They predicted 3 for the Isere massifs but it snowed a lot more than forecast - 60 rather that 30cm so now 4. Take care today.

Mont Blanc Tunnel is closed for avalanche control work.

+4C rise in temperature at 10h30, zero isotherm now 1800m with rain to 1500m. Probably a lot of crust around tomorrow lower down or heavy snow.

video of a slide in the park here (Leysin) a couple of days ago :

http://vimeo.com/35343162

they’ve lost some rails and bits in the slide. Not clear how this will reopen this season!

That is an impressive slide, pity he didn’t actually STOP to film it, still good to have taken his camera out.

After yesterday’s fresh powder then thaw things were pretty humid today. Zero iso at 1900m and the snow was pretty soggy to 2200m, still higher up there was a significant risk of slab avalanches. The snow was reasonably skiable though.

I liked this photo - snow geology - you can see all the snow fall over the season so far.

Stevo is doing a daily translation of the Savoie/Tarentaise bulletin here

http://www.whiteroomchalet.com/tarentaise_avalanche_forecast.htm

It has been a long weekend. On Friday we took off to Meadre for the National Husky Dog Sledding Championships in Meaudre. The missus and junior are both big husky fans. I was worried about the “snowmaggedon” forecast by the doomsters at Meteo France but we probably had no more than 5cm of fresh over the weekend - 10cm at altitude and in some specific locations.

Off Piste is limited at Meaudre. You can ski down through the woods on the right side of the mountain, the trees are just spaced enough to do this. I was keen to start Junior on a Piste to Powder programme and as we were in resort early I found some between the pistes to practice. Saw a guy with the most enormous rocker skis, like orange bananas, but he only seemed to ski on the piste and fell over a few times at that. Also huge amounts of snow bladers in resort.

So as Firechick reports, sad news today in France, our first avalanche fatality

http://pistehors.com/news/forums/viewthread/1148/

thoughts to his friends and family.

I was in the Belledonne with an FFME Ski Leaders group doing some snow and avalanche exercises. At the Col de Roche Fendue an example of the prevailing winds, rime ice forms into the wind, in this case from the south-east.

The Fresh snow,around 5-10cm, had caused some point avalanches. These had only taken the surface snow

which is a good sign.

A snowpit revealed a crust about 3cm under the surface, which caused some skiers a bit of trouble. Under this was about 10cm of humid but fresh snow sitting on an ice crust (rain?). This is the recent snow that has fallen since Thursday. Under the 0.5-1cm ice crust a further layer of non-consolidated snow, you can see I could put a fist into this. Not sure if the crystals were facetted. There is then a meter of solid snow sitting on top of October’s depth hoar layer firmly bridging this. So while the first meter is pretty stable the upper layers are worth watching. Pit was on a 30 degree NE slope at around 2400 meters.

The whole Northern French Alps is on orange alert for snow today. 30cm between 1am - 5am at 2300 meters in the Belledonne and about 15cm in my back garden. Meteo France has the avalanche risk at 2 for the whole region which seems like an underestimate to me.

it’s two here as well. about right I’d say. We’ve very light, cold powder on a reasonable base, the danger hasn’t substantially altered from yesterday (mostly glide avalanches) although there’s wind transport. Poor visibility but not a bad ski day. Should get a few hours today I’d think

The base is stable but from what I saw on Sunday we have the snowfall from mid-January, an ice crust then last weekend snowfall and now another 20-30cm on top. I see MF revised the snowfall figures for today upwards from 10cm to 20cm so I think 2 was on the low side here. Avalanche risk is 3 in the Isere ranges tomorrow which seems more like it. Expect some natural activity.