Ms. Holle in East Tyrol and Carinthia out of control

It is an event that occurs very rarely, but by Sunday morning the time had come: the Tyrol avalanche warning service “imposed” avalanche alert level 5, that is, very high risk, on the east of the Tirol. Spontaneous avalanches in high catchment areas are to be expected throughout the day, in extremely large isolated cases as well, he said. But at the same time, the head of the avalanche warning service, Rudi Mair, calmed down at least a little: due to relatively warm temperatures and sometimes a lot of rain, avalanches of wet snow in particular are expected, not from dust. The latter would cause greater damage.

SN / APA / EXPA / JOHANN GRODER

The fact that the avalanche situation in East Tyrol is very tense today was made clear by the departure of a slab on Saturday night in Prägraten am Großvenediger. Four houses and a vehicle were damaged. People were not injured. Also on Sunday, for the time being, there were other slabs with individual buildings damaged.

Otherwise, the emergency services had to fight on all fronts due to the huge rains in the state: in East Tyrol and also in North Tyrol along the main Alpine range from the Brenner to the Ötztal – Isolated landslides and flooded basements, as well as road and railroad blockades. In East Tyrol in particular, around 4,000 households were still without power on Saturday afternoon and will likely remain so for the rest of the day. Governor Günther Platter (ÖVP) secured East Tyrol’s financial support. The district chief, Olga Reisner, appealed to the population to stay home.

In Carinthia, however, huge amounts of fresh snow in the Lesachtal, Gailtal and Upper Mölltal areas caused road blocks. At the same time, milder temperatures at lower elevations caused some slopes to slide, and landslides blocked the road. According to the state press service, the SPÖ regional adviser and disaster control officer Daniel Fellner appealed to the population of all climate-affected areas to stay in their homes.

All the emergency vehicles from the road maintenance depots were in constant use to control rainfall. Fellner called on the people of Upper Carinthia to adhere to the orders of the emergency services: “Please stay at home and do not climb onto snowy roofs to shovel them out.”

After the avalanche slopes, some roads were closed, while snow chains were mandatory on others. In the course of the afternoon and into the evening, the snow in Lower Carinthia turned more and more into rain showers. During the night the rainfall was expected to subside, but there should be some stormy wind in the Karawanken valleys.

According to the first data assessment, the amounts of fresh 24-hour snow at some ZAMG weather stations in the affected areas of the two federal states were in the record range. Even a “record” was broken. In Umhausen, in Ötztal (1,030 meters above sea level), it snowed around 80 centimeters from Saturday to Sunday, the 24-hour record was 45 centimeters since October 2013. Measurements have been made here since 1956. It snowed in the Brennero (1,400 meters) from Saturday to Sunday around 90 centimeters (record: 100 centimeters, measured in March 1975). In St. Jakob / Defereggen (East Tyrol, 1,283 meters) there was a snow cover of 110 centimeters on Sunday morning, in Döllach in the Upper Mölltal (Carinthia, 1,071 meters) of 97 centimeters and in Sillian (East Tyrol, 1,081 meters) 89 centimeters.

According to ZAMG, it snowed around 100 to 150 centimeters from Friday to Sunday morning in the mountains of Upper Carinthia, East Tyrol and in the area of ​​the main Tyrolean Alpine range, sometimes a little more. Around 50 to 100 centimeters of fresh snow will arrive here on Monday, according to the forecast. The foehn storm still reached over 100 km / h in the mountains on Sunday morning.

The situation in Salzburg

The level of danger from bad weather has increased for the south of Salzburg. The danger of avalanches increases considerably and floods are possible. Read more about it here.

Those: APA