19.12.2023 | Jochen Bettzieche | SLF News
The SLF has introduced a freely accessible map showing where people have observed avalanches in the past few days. The data will help winter sports enthusiasts select and plan their tours – and they can even contribute to the project themselves as citizen scientists. The aim is also to gain more feedback from the field in order to make avalanche warning more comprehensive.
Since 14 December, the SLF is providing details of avalanches that have occurred in the past three days. This will give ski tourers, snowshoers and freeriders more information to help them plan their next outing, enabling them to change their chosen tour or adapt the route to the conditions.
An overview map shows where people in Switzerland have observed avalanches in the past one to three days. This allows users to see which regions have high levels of avalanche activity. Filters can be set for particular details, such as the type or size of avalanches and whether they were triggered by people or naturally. The map is available on the SLF website. It will also be integrated into the SLF White Risk mobile app during the 2023/24 winter season.
The data comes not only from SLF observers but also from tourers who are out in the field themselves. By reporting avalanches here, they can actively support the work of the avalanche warning service as volunteer citizen scientists. Any avalanches reported are directly incorporated into the overview map.
The motivation for providing this extra information was to increase the number of avalanches reported, explains SLF avalanche warning officer Lukas Dürr: “Avalanches themselves are an unequivocal indicator of the avalanche danger.”
However, the map should not be the sole basis for deciding where to plan your next ski or snowshoe tour. “Where a lot of avalanches are reported, there is a proven avalanche danger,” says Dürr. But the opposite is not necessarily true. If no avalanches have been observed in a region, that does not mean that none have occurred or could occur there, warns the expert: “An avalanche might not be entered in our database for a variety of reasons.”
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