Ski Touring Conditions
Get combined avalanche, snow, and weather data for ski touring in the Austrian Alps.
Prerequisites
- •bash 4.0+ (for associative arrays)
- •macOS ships with bash 3.x:
brew install bash - •Linux: Usually pre-installed
- •macOS ships with bash 3.x:
- •uv (for coordinate lookup feature)
- •
curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh
- •
- •jq, curl, bc (checked at runtime)
When to Invoke
- •User asks about ski touring / backcountry skiing conditions
- •User wants avalanche danger levels for a specific area
- •Phrases like "skitour", "Lawinengefahr", "snow conditions", "touring conditions"
- •User mentions Austrian touring areas (Stubai, Rax, Hochschwab, Lech, etc.)
Quick Usage
bash
# Single location by name ./skitour.sh --location stubai ./skitour.sh --location rax # Single location by coordinates (auto-detects region) ./skitour.sh --lat 47.1 --lon 11.3 # Compare multiple locations ./skitour.sh --compare "stubai,rax,lech"
Coordinate Lookup
When using --lat and --lon, the script automatically determines the correct EAWS micro-region using a Python helper (region_lookup.py) that performs point-in-polygon matching against official EAWS GeoJSON boundaries. This requires uv to be installed.
Available Locations
| Region | Locations |
|---|---|
| Tyrol (AT-07) | stubai, obergurgl, soelden, mayrhofen, hintertux, kuehtai, stanton, galtuer, kaunertal, seefeld, kitzbuehel |
| Carinthia (AT-02) | heiligenblut, badkleinkirchheim, mallnitz |
| Vorarlberg (AT-08) | lech, gargellen, kleinwalsertal, brand |
| Lower Austria (AT-03) | rax, schneeberg, otscher, durrenstein |
| Styria (AT-06) | hochschwab, schneealpe, veitsch, stuhleck |
Data Sources
| Data | Source | Coverage | Freshness |
|---|---|---|---|
| Avalanche danger | lawinen-warnung.eu / avalanche.report | All Austrian alpine regions | Updated daily ~17:00 |
| Snow depth | GeoSphere SNOWGRID | Austria, 1km grid | 1 day behind |
| Weather | Open-Meteo ICON-D2 | Alps/Europe, 2.2km | 48h forecast |
Example Output
code
═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
📍 STUBAI (Stubaier Alpen Mitte)
Coordinates: 47.111°N, 11.308°E
═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
🔺 AVALANCHE DANGER
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Danger level: 2 - Moderate
Trend: steady
Main problem: wind_slab
Valid until: <date>
❄️ SNOW DEPTH
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Current: 45 cm (SNOWGRID, 1 day behind)
🌤️ WEATHER FORECAST
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Hour Temp Wind Cloud Precip%
06:00 -6.2°C 2km/h 77% 0%
...
If the bulletin's Valid until date is before today, a ⚠️ warning indicates the data may be outdated.
Limitations
- •Snow depth data is 1 day behind (GeoSphere processing delay)
- •Avalanche bulletins update daily around 17:00, may be outdated in morning
- •Weather forecast limited to 48 hours (ICON-D2 range)
- •Salzburg (AT-05) not yet supported (data source issue)