Lawinenwarnung

From October 7 to 12, Innsbruck became the center of the world. The world of snow and avalanches. The International Snow Science Workshop was held for the first time in the "Capital of the Alps". A review of a successful week and a look ahead to interesting developments in avalanche prevention and accident management 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.

The ISSW (International Snow Science Workshop) is the world's largest specialist conference on snow and avalanches. This fall, it will be held in Innsbruck for the first time and, with a new concept, will set the tone for the practical implementation of snow and avalanche research.

Avalanche warning is also a joint project for all of us. This week in SnowFlurry, we discuss why it is not only important to report avalanche accidents, but also special observations of snow and its transformation processes.

At a meeting in summer 2017, the European avalanche warning services decided on changes to the hazard level matrix and the nomenclature of avalanche sizes.

We continue with the International Snow Science Workshop 2016 and the studies presented there: Having already dealt with some topics in Part 1 that have more to do with the nature of snow and avalanches, we now turn our attention to people and how they deal with avalanches. Avalanche reports and the authorities that issue them are extremely important for us as winter sports enthusiasts, but their job is not always easy. On the one hand, of course, because the snow doesn't always do what you might expect, and on the other because very complex issues have to be communicated as simply and intuitively as possible. What are the current issues here and how do you approach them?

For some years now, avalanche problems have been included in the situation reports of many warning services. The Utah Avalanche Center, among others, has been in charge of this. The avalanche problems are based on an article by Roger Atkins, published as part of the International Snow Science Workshop 2004. They indicate "typical, recurring and mostly obvious" hazardous situations. The avalanche problems provide an initial, rather rough overview of possible sources of danger, while the "danger patterns" developed by the LWD Tirol focus more on the causes.

He likes it best when it's "clinking and clattering". Today*, however, it was quiet, almost too quiet for his taste. Danger level 2 - moderate - little avalanche activity. The Friday interview with Radio Rumantsch at 5.50 p.m. - a home game for the 29-year-old avalanche forecaster from Ruschein in the Grisons Oberland - then it's time to call it a day.

The whole world is talking about ski tours in Norway: Beautiful shots and lots of rave reviews - or is it all just a commercial trend that shouldn't be followed blindly just because it no longer seems spectacular enough in the local mountains? We decided to see for ourselves and packed our bags for 10 days of ski touring in the Lyngen Alps...