Two people have been killed and another five injured, three severely, following an avalanche on Mount Hohe Ferse (or Tallone Grande), a 2669 m peak in the Eastern Rhaetan Alps of Italy's Alto Adige (or South Tyrol) Province, on Saturday 21 March 2025. The avalanche, which is described as having been about 150 m wide, occurred at an altitude of about 2400 m, and caught 25 skiers in total.
Avalanches are caused by the mechanical failure of snowpacks; essentially when the weight of the snow above a certain point exceeds the carrying capacity of the snow at that point to support its weight. This can happen for two reasons, because more snow falls upslope, causing the weight to rise, or because snow begins to melt downslope, causing the carrying capacity to fall. Avalanches may also be triggered by other events, such as Earthquakes or rockfalls. Contrary to what is often seen in films and on television, avalanches are not usually triggered by loud noises. Because snow forms layers, with each layer typically occurring due to a different snowfall, and having different physical properties, multiple avalanches can occur at the same spot, with the failure of a weaker layer losing to the loss of the snow above it, but other layers below left in place - to potentially fail later.
The incident brings the number of people killed in avalanches in Europe this winter to 127, including 33 in Italy, 31 in France, 29 in Austria, 15 in Switzerland, eight in Spain, six in Slovakia, and one each in Poland and Andorra. This means that this snow season in Europe (which is not yet over) has already produced the second highest recorded number of deaths, exceeded only by the winter of 2017/18, when 147 people died.
This high number of fatalities appears to be linked to the warming climate, which has several knock-on effects that can lead to avalanches. Firstly, warmer conditions over the Atlantic lead to higher evaporation levels and therefore more moist air flowing over Europe, which tends to precipitate out as snow when it encounters cold updraughts above the continent's mountain ranges. Secondly, the snow itself is warmer, in many places failing to form the deeply frozen lower layers that tend to keep the snowpack in place. Finally, the higher temperature of the atmosphere tends to lead to windier conditions, which also prevents snow settling in a single place, often leading to moving drifts, which are much more prone to avalanching than solid snowpack.
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