Sunday, August 1, 2010

New Avalanche Danger Scale for 2010/11

New Avalanche Danger Scale for 2010/11: "There is a new unified avalanche danger scale rolling out for the 2010/11 season that will create a common vocabulary between US and Canadian avalanche centers, according to Powder Magazine [...] It’s not immediately clear to me what the major differences are here. It retains the Low/Moderate/Considerable/High/Extreme methodology with similar explanations for each danger rating.
I prefer the new wording. In my opinion, the old United States scale did not sufficiently distinguish "Moderate" from "Considerable," and its description of "Extreme" was not extreme enough. The Utah Avalanche Center, excellent as usual, introduces the new scale, summarizes the discussions that led to it, and supplements it with important statistics and visual aids.

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