Schneeforschung

SLF doctoral student Jürg Trachsel loves skiing and is happy when snow clouds bring fluffy powder. Professionally, he is also interested in the properties of snow, but then he swaps his skis for a microscope. He gets his samples from the real powder clouds and an artificial cloud in the lab that makes it snow at the touch of a button.

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.

Far too little attention is paid to humidity in everyday snowmaking. However, its influence on the snow cover is just as important as the temperature. Let's consider a marriage in which complete equality between the two partners is the reality.

Ever since we got the SNOWGRID maps on PowderGuide, we've been getting questions about their accuracy: Why is there much more snow here in my favorite forest slope than on the map? SNOWGRID says there's two meters of snow in Ticino, but my buddy says there's nothing at all? Below we provide some insights into the complex world of precipitation measurement, the efforts of ZAMG to record snow as accurately as possible and why it still doesn't always work.

In a recently published study by the University of Neuchâtel and the SLF (WSL), snow depth data from 11 weather stations in the Swiss Alps were examined. The stations are located in an altitude range between 1139 and 2450 m and the time series go back to 1970. The duration of snow cover has decreased at all 11 stations, whereby the earlier melting of the snow cover in spring is reflected in the statistics.