Avalanche situation favourable.
Snowpack layering in the Jura region, on the northern flank of the Alps and in the western Lower Valais is predominantly favourable.
In many places, faceted soft layers are evident in the snowpack near the rain crust which formed at the end of December. However,
these layers are currently hardly prone to triggering.
From the central part of the Valais over the northern part of Ticino as far as Grisons, the entire snowpack is often expansively
metamorphosed (faceted) and riddled with thin melt-freeze crusts. In increasingly frequent cases you sink down to the ground
on your skis. In isolated cases, particularly on very steep shady slopes in these regions, avalanches can be triggered in
the old snow at ground-level.
The snowpack surfaces on north-facing slopes are frequently loose and expansively metamorphosed (faceted). Steep south-facing
slopes are encrusted and tend to turn to corn snow during the course of the day. At high altitudes, as well as in general
in ridgeline and pass areas, the snowpack surface is frequently marked by the effects of northerly winds.
In the furthermost southern regions, a continuous area-wide thin snowpack still exists only on north-facing slopes.