Europe

[VTmark]

Anybody want to explaine to me why the snowpack is so unstable this year? I saw a map that said even scotland had a slide.

[toast21602]

there was an avalanche in Boston too. It's crazy.

 

[VTmark]

Ahahaha yeah I saw that. Thats a legit crown.

[Johnny Law]

How much info do you want ?

 

Basically wind is the answer. Snow can fall out of the sky at most about 2" and hour, short bursts of 3" but wind can move 2ft in an hour. If it's dumping into a trap and forming convex you got serious problems.

 

Scotland has lots of slides and actually gets kind of rowdy. A dude on TGR used to post TR's, equivalent I would say to about Tuxs. Norther Cairngorms is generally the worst area for slides. - Scots avy forecast - http://www.sais.gov.uk/northern-cairngorms/

 

Slides in Scotland are wind slab over week layer, in wind events damaged crystals get slammed into lee areas and can form a hard slab. Hard slabs are generally the worst types of avy's.

 

Cham is moderate a 3 on there scale, Swiss is moderate.

 

Generally they have major avy's because they have major terrain with pretty big snows. Beyond that it's hard to generalize over such a large area.

 

Eurp saw big snowfalls followed by really cold air, the cold air introduces instabilities. No biggy until you get a warm up which starts to round the crystals and "fix" the instabilities. Cats are antsy in the pantsy to get out and ski, non-north facing aspects the pack has warmed up and the crystals are rounds, North/NE facing aspects however are obviously colder the instabilities still exist and thus you get peeps in trouble and all they've done is a slight change in aspect.

 

Beyond that I would need to know what specific place your talking about.

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

there was an avalanche in Boston too. It's crazy.

 

Oh Lordy. The snow on the roof at my work slid...the debris was thick and white