Not yesterday's news

It's getting cozy in the Bell 412 from Heli Tirol near Imst. The helicopter actually holds 13 people, but with the team from LWD Tirol, Austrian journalists with camera equipment and me, we quickly fill the flying minibus. The sight of the white peaks and inviting slopes after the first major snowfall of the winter is breathtaking. We fly over the Pitz and Ötztal valleys into the Stubai Valley.

Dream team with an international reputation

In front of the pilot is Paul Kössler, a qualified electrical engineer and technical director of the LWD for 15 years. Today, he will be maintaining two of the 200 weather stations that supply the LWD with 288,000 pieces of data every day. To my right, Rudi Mair and Patrick Nairz have long been busy with their work and are keeping a close eye on the terrain below us.

Dr. Rudi Mair has been head of the Avalanche Warning Service Tyrol since 1999: "When I started working for the avalanche warning service in 1990, there wasn't a single measuring station," explains Mair. Today, the Tyroleans are leaders in the development and implementation of new technologies and communication channels. They were the first to publish the avalanche situation report on the Internet and later via an app, and this winter they launched the world's first cross-border LLB with South Tyrol and Trentino with avalanche.report, which is also published the day before at 5 p.m. (Read more HIER) and since this winter have been the only warning service apart from the Swiss to use the SnowMicroPen© developed by the Swiss SLF - an exciting device, but more on that later.

Patrick Nairz had actually already finished his temporary traineeship at the LWD when the avalanche disaster in Galtür occurred in February 1999 and Mair urgently needed support. Since then, the two have been a well-coordinated team.

Tip: Read the LLB for the same preferred area every morning. This way you get used to the terminology, get a feel for the sources of danger and danger patterns over the winter and can compare the recommendations with your own experience, which can be exciting. Then compare the data with the corresponding map to plan your tour. The technical terms and definitions are explained with photos at avalanches.org/

Office at 2750 meters

Our flight on this day serves to complete the overall picture for the situation report. Mair speaks of synoptics here as a synopsis that provides the analysis for the overall picture from many different data and experiences. And how do the 288,000 pieces of data per day fit into this? "That's how powerful my bio-processor is," jokes Mair. "It's all about recording the course of the measured values and sorting out measurement errors. We can see this at a glance and, together with our experience, we can use it to create a flat map. That's why a forecaster can never be replaced by a computer."

For data collection, we end up at the weather station in the Kleine Horntal at 2,750 meters above sea level, after picking up LWD employee Christoph Mitterer at the Franz-Senn-Hütte. The only German in the team coordinates the Interreg ALBINA project. "Duck and cover" is the order of the day as soon as we get out of the helicopter, the force of the rotor blades is always amazing, then it takes off again. Reverent silence, a bright blue sky and a crisp minus 18 degrees - welcome to the LWD workplace.

cold place - hot shit

The cold temperature doesn't dampen the good mood and the boss also ensures a good atmosphere: Rudi Mair routinely answers the ORF's questions for a long-term documentary and also amuses the crew with recitations of either Greek legends or wisdom from Heinz Erhard. Paul climbs onto the measuring station to repair a sensor. Later, together with Harald Riedl, the training manager of the Tyrolean avalanche commissions, he will fly to another weather station at the summit. Pilot Andrä is unable to land here, instead hovering and touching down with just one skid. Paul climbs onto the station in ski boots, which is directly adjacent to a 300-metre deep abyss.

In the small Horntal valley, Patrick digs a hole around one meter deep to create a snow profile in the traditional way. Classic because three meters further on, Christoph unpacks the LWD's new "wonder weapon": the SnowMicroPen©, or SMP for short. The device, which costs around 30,000 euros, was developed by the renowned Swiss WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF in Davos and is currently only being used and further developed by this institute and the LWD Tyrol.

Handicraft versus high-tech

The SnowMicroPen© uses a highly sensitive electric probe that moves evenly into the snow to measure how hard the snow layers are at a depth of up to 1.25 meters within seconds, without having to shovel snow. More precisely, it measures the penetration resistance 250 times per millimeter. The SMP consists of a long probe element and the control and data recording unit. The measurement allows conclusions to be drawn about snow density and snow structure and therefore about snow layering - an important factor in avalanche formation. The advantages are a fast and objective, and therefore comparable, analysis of the snow cover.

Conclusion

200 measuring stations provide the LWD with 288,000 pieces of data per day - the densest network in the world. Up to 20 snow profiles and up to 50 reports are delivered by external observers per day. In addition, LWD employees make around three field trips per week and around ten control flights per season, which are linked to the maintenance of the measuring stations.

The high technical effort, combined with the meticulousness and motivation of the team from the Tyrol Avalanche Warning Service, make such a high and accurate avalanche situation report possible: according to Horst Fankhauser, the warning service is not quite right more than twice in the entire winter season. Their success proves them right: "There are ten times as many ski tourers today as there were 20 years ago, but the absolute number of accidents has remained constant," says Mair.

It is important for users of the LLB to understand it and to recognize the frequently recurring problems and patterns in nature in order to act accordingly. According to Mair, the current (Dec 2018) old snow problem can still be alleviated this winter, so it is too early to formulate a basic framework regarding snowpack structure and weather...

More details with photos and analyses after avalanche accidents in Tyrol can be found in the blog

From this season, the Bavarian LWD also publishes the situation report at 5.30 p.m. for the following day.

Reading tip: avalanche. The practical handbook by Rudi Mair and Patrick Nairz. 6th edition 2018.
With vivid pictures of specific accident situations and, of course, explanations of the key problems and hazard patterns. Exciting and instructive at the same time, without being instructive.