PartnerNews | The SLF Avalanche Bulletin turns 75

First, let's take a look at the avalanche bulletin as such:

It is not produced automatically at the touch of a button, but on the basis of expert knowledge and experience. There are a total of eight forecasters at the SLF, three of whom are always on duty together. They are assigned as "beginner", "main responsible person" and "reserve person". In the next rotation, the "starter" becomes the "main person in charge", the "main person in charge" becomes the "reserve person" and the "reserve person" leaves the bulletin service. This rotation procedure ensures that knowledge about the previous development of the snow and avalanche situation is passed on in an overlapping manner and is not lost.

Set catalog for automatic translation

The avalanche warning systems create a separate hazard description for each hazard area. Particularly in the morning, the time window between the arrival of the observations from the terrain and the output time is so short that manual translation is not possible. For this reason, a fully automatic translation system was developed at the SLF. It is based on a catalog of predefined sentences that have been translated into all the required languages and stored in the database. When the bulletin is created, the hazard descriptions are not written freely, but are compiled from these predefined sentences so that they are immediately available in all languages. The individual sentences are not fixed so that all possible situations can be described. They consist of different segments, each of which can be selected from predefined options. Paper on the sentence catalog: Download as pdf.

You can find more information on the daily creation of the SLF Bulletin here and below under "further articles".