Lawinenkunde

Avalanche warning products often only refer to the "classic spring situation". But what are the "non-classical spring situations"? This time it's about the three non-classical of the four different snowpack scenarios in spring.

Avalanche warning products often only refer to the "classic spring situation". But what are the "non-classical" spring situations? There are three of them, which we will discuss in more detail in the next SnowFlurry. But to start with, let's look at the most common of the four different snow cover scenarios in spring.

Due to the current situation caused by COVID 19 and the resulting curfew, we snow rummagers are also staying at home and using the time to share old, interesting profiles or technical knowledge with you. If you refresh and expand your snow and avalanche knowledge now, you will be all the better equipped for the next season - because it is sure to come.

Hazard pattern 4 - cold on warm, warm on cold - occurs when there is a large temperature difference (more than 5°C) during the snowing process or between the snow surface and the fresh snow. As the name suggests, it can occur in both temperature directions, regardless of whether it snows cold on a warm surface or vice versa.

Two years ago, Lisa Hempfer was given the opportunity to take part in the Training Session (Level 1) and the Next Level (Level 2) through the cooperation between PowderGuide and the risk'n'fun training programme. Last winter, Lisa also completed the Backcountry Pro (Level 3) and Alpine Professionals (Level 4). Lisa has once again taken the time to summarise her experiences. In the first part, Lisa reports on the Backcountry Pro Camp:

You often see that the lower snow layers are missing from profiles, but aren't these also important? Basically yes, but since you can't assess an entire slope with a profile, but "only" (and yet very much) locate the snow layers, snow forms, weak layers, etc., as well as observe fracture initiation and fracture propagation, you don't necessarily have to dig a three-metre-deep hole.

Patrick Nairz has been an avalanche forecaster for the avalanche warning service in Tyrol for over 20 years and is a well-known face in the ski touring scene. Schneestöberer spoke to him about the 5 avalanche problems, his career, his most important contributions to avalanche prevention and about hunting for crusts in the snowpack.

This week, our newly acquired snow rummager repeats the confusion of symbols, abbreviations and numbers that can be found in a typical snow profile. If you know how, you can read all sorts of things from such a graphic and you don't always have to dig yourself to get an overview of the snow cover at a particular location. There's also a new profile from the Sellrain, so you can put your new knowledge into practice right away!

Every two years, full-time snow scientists - both practitioners and those with a more theoretical bent - meet to exchange knowledge at the International Snow Science Workshop, the so-called "Ei-S-S-double-you" (ISSW)*. Every two weeks, we take a look at individual topics from the last conference and summarize them in a generally understandable way, or at least try to. What the ISSW is in particular, and what the last one was, can be found in this article:

We are delighted to be able to offer a place at the training session, the next level camp and the end-of-season chillout again this year together with risk'n'fun. risk'n'fun is the training program of the Alpine Club Youth. In addition to learning technical skills, the freeride camps also focus on "human" topics such as group dynamics and personal risk perception.

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.

372 written papers were submitted to the International Snow Science Workshop in Innsbruck last October. The Schneestöberer has distilled the most interesting 10% of them for the particularly ambitious readers and collected them with a direct link to the respective paper.