Lawinenbulletin

A reliable avalanche bulletin requires up-to-date information from the terrain. To this end, the SLF maintains its own network of around 200 observers in the Swiss Alps and the Jura. On the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the avalanche bulletin, the SLF presents some of them in short portraits.

The Swiss Avalanche Bulletin is entering its 75th season! Congratulations and thank you for the great service! To mark the anniversary, PowderGuide.com (as well as the SLF homepage) will be publishing various articles about the work of the SLF over the next few weeks.

The Avalanche Warning Service Tyrol offers its newsletter function via various channels. It's best to register now to stay up to date! The daily avalanche report is standard reading every evening to determine the next destination in the snow and to carry out appropriate risk management on site.

The Initiative for a Uniform Avalanche Forecast throughout the Alps - IFALP - would like to see situation reports no longer stop at national borders. PG columnist Lukas Ruetz is committed to IFALP and we took the opportunity to find out more about how IFALP came about and what the initiators want for the future of avalanche warning in the Alps. An interview by Eliane Droemer:

The Euregio Avalanche Report has brought some innovations to the world of avalanche warnings since 2018/19. These include the function of highlighting or dimming areas with a certain avalanche problem - perfect for getting a quick overview of weak layers in old snow.

In the avalanche bulletin, the typical avalanche problems are also indicated in the hazard description. While the avalanche danger answers the question "How high is the danger?", the avalanche problem gives an indication of "What is the problem?".

Every two years, the International Snow Science Workshop (ISSW) brings together scientists and practitioners from a wide range of different, but always snow-related, subject areas. New findings and research results are presented in various thematic blocks - so-called sessions. We break the whole thing down into more or less digestible morsels and summarize the sessions of ISSW2018 for you every two weeks. This time: Hazard communication and perception.

Célia Lucas, 29, has been an avalanche forecaster at the WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF in Davos since last winter. In this interview, she tells us how she ended up in Switzerland from Luxembourg, about her day-to-day work at the SLF and how her profession also accompanies her on private ski tours.

The SLF's weekly report serves as an important source of information for winter sports enthusiasts outside the geographical borders of Switzerland. We present this regular contribution to you today.

Winter sports enthusiasts who enjoy being out in the open terrain benefit enormously from the free service of the daily avalanche situation report (LLB). During the winter months, Eliane Droemer found out how the situation report is created every day from over 200,000 pieces of data and observations in the terrain, what news there is from research and what experiences the team has in common during the first control flight of the 18/19 season with LWD Tirol in mid-December.

In order to describe avalanches - for example in avalanche bulletins, after accidents or for feedback from the terrain - standardized terms should be used for their size. From the 2018/19 season, the official EAWS terminology has been adapted to common usage in order to improve comprehensibility for winter sports enthusiasts.

Since the 2017/2018 season, LWD Tirol has been offering the option of automatically receiving the daily avalanche situation report and new blog entries in the form of a Whats App subscription. This service has proven to be very useful in practice and is therefore our Gear of the Week.