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New test may better predict avalanches
 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead

Forecasting the occurrence of avalanches may not be far from reach, say University of Calgary researchers, who have developed a new test to foresee potentially fatal snow slides. Dave Gauthier has developed a promising new snow-stability test, the saw propagation test, that could help avalanche professionals better predict the most dangerous kinds of slides....The test uses a special saw to assess the spreading tendency of cracks deep in snowpack layers, which often lead to major avalanches.

For the past 3 years, he and a team of snow researchers headed by Bruce Jamieson, who runs the Applied Snow Science & Avalanche Research group, have been field-testing the new technique, which correctly predicts 72% of the time that a deep-slab avalanche will not occur.

Other avalanche pit tests rely on a surface load to trigger a collapse in a weak layer of snow, and fail to reach deep layers of instability. The new test fills the gap for a test for deep-layer avalanches. However, it can only explain what might happen once a break occurs in a weak layer of the snowpack, not how much force is required to trigger the fracture. And since analysing the results of the test is too tricky for recreational backcountry users, the public will only benefit indirectly if avalanche professionals adopt the new test.

See: http://www.canada.com/topics/news/story.html?id=c50a0481-2cf5-4729-9f49-bcd09c16b998&k=4861 and http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/story.html?id=fae2b319-ce8f-48f6-bf36-fa90bc156f90&k=26016
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