SLF

There will be a brief spell of sunshine today (Wednesday), followed by more snow on the northern slopes of the Alps. The weekend is also expected to be very wintry with snow down to low altitudes.

Since the beginning of the week, the very mild phase that has kept us busy recently has come to an end. High pressure still prevails in the Alpine region and the weather is autumnal in character, with high fog in many valleys and sunshine for those who make it out of the fog. A change in the weather is on the horizon for the weekend, which should make the whole Alpine region feel much more like winter.

A recent find on the Internet: "No winter without old snow problems - that's annoying!" We take a more nuanced view of this statement and put it into perspective: How is an old snow problem defined, what exactly does it look like at the moment and are all old snow problems a big problem for us?

The triumph of apps and thus smartphone-based orientation and navigation for outdoor activities has been unstoppable in recent years. The Swiss app White Risk goes one step further and combines this with extensive avalanche-related information and background material (e.g. training opportunities, etc.). Our tester reports on his experiences with it, from tour planning at home to the summit!

In his recently completed dissertation, SLF avalanche forecaster Frank Techel investigated how well avalanche bulletins reflect the actual danger situation and whether they are consistent across different regions and areas of responsibility of individual warning services. In this interview, he explains more about his work and his unusual career path.

Overall, the weather will continue to be changeable and prone to precipitation, with a significantly fluctuating snow line. Over the next few days, Atlantic low-pressure areas will repeatedly reach us, which will be steered towards the Alps from the west. Due to the alternation of warm air at the front of the trough and colder air at the back of the trough, temperatures will be on a rollercoaster.

The SLF issued its first avalanche bulletin on December 21, 1945. Since then, avalanche risk forecasting has developed significantly. However, despite all the technical advances, specialist knowledge and the assessment of experts are still required today.

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 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:

Many ski resorts may be closed in spring, but the ski touring season is not over yet. But where is the white gold? Especially at this time of year, information is scarce - avalanche warning services have stopped their daily reports, few ski tourers report on the conditions and generally speaking, ski tours are simply difficult to imagine when you're lying in the sun in the valley wearing shorts.

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 the ISSW2018 for you every two weeks.