Avalanche warning on Chowkibal–Tangdhar axis (J&K): A hybrid approach

Conventional as well as numerical techniques are being widely used for the prediction of snow avalanches. The present approach combines both the techniques and delivers avalanche danger warning for 24 h in advance. Initially different levels of avalanche danger have been decided by observing fresh s...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Current science (Bangalore) 2006-12, Vol.91 (11), p.1558-1562
Main Authors: Joshi, J. C., Ganju, A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Avalanches
Mathematical independent variables
Meteorology
Precipitation
RESEARCH COMMUNICATIONS
Snow
Warnings
Weather forecasting
Wind velocity
Winter
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Summary:Conventional as well as numerical techniques are being widely used for the prediction of snow avalanches. The present approach combines both the techniques and delivers avalanche danger warning for 24 h in advance. Initially different levels of avalanche danger have been decided by observing fresh snow of 24 h and standing snow from a snow-meteorological database of the past ten winters (1992–2002) along with a database of avalanche warning and occurrences. Finally these levels have been characterized by a critical range calculated by using a discriminant function, which is a function of all the significant snow and meteorological parameters. The significant snow and meteorological parameters have been selected by correlation analysis. For the selection of significant parameters and to calculate the critical range for each of the danger levels, a new term, i.e. index of avalanche has been introduced and its variation in different ranges of snow and meteorological parameters has been discussed. For the winter of 2003–2004, model outcome has been compared with the actual avalanche occurrences. Out of total 122 days during winter, there were 27 avalanche days and 95 non-avalanche days. The accuracy of the model for avalanche occurrence is 67% and for non-occurrence it is 84%.
ISSN:0011-3891