The Lower Austria Avalanche Warning Service - the Youngest in the Alps

International Snow ScienceInternational Workshop, Snow Davos Science 2009, WorkshopProceedings Davos 2009

The lower Austria Avalanche Warning Service - the youngest in the Alps

Arnold Studeregger, Hannes Rieder1,* and Fritz Salzer2 1 Institute of Meteorology and Geodynamic, Graz, Austria 2 Government of Lower Austria, St. Pölten, Austria

ABSTRACT: The avalanche warning service was established by the government of lower Austria to- gether with the avalanche experts of the Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics Costumer Service Styria in a very short time. The first regular season was winter 2006/07.

KEYWORDS: Avalanche, Avalanche Warning Service, Alps

1 INTRODUCTION 2 METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS

A c ommunication an d catastrophe manage- The avalanche and the slab avalanche situa- ment (headquarter f or warnings - hydrology – tion in the transnational area along the 160 km ZAMG – population) was arr anged. This ne w border between lower Austria and Styria shows system proved very ef fective in February 2009. major differences of avalanche building weather On February 23rd and 24th the lower Austria ava- situations. On the west side of the area between lanche s ervice i ssued th e hi ghest a valanche the Ybbstaler Alps to the Mürzsteger Alps there danger for the first time (5 - very high). In Feb- is a bi g a ltitude difference. The meteorological ruary 2009 the sum of fresh snow was over 500 conditions for fresh snow are coming fr om the cm on mount Hochkar! northwest to north. The east side of the Alps is influenced by the meteorological conditions from the east.

Next to meteorological parameters, the cha- racter of the terr ain is important when it comes to avalanche building: Notorious are the extreme and more than 50 degrees sidewalls and chan- nels from the north of the limestone Alps. These were considered classic backcountry tours in the spring, but in the l ast years the se areas were also skied in winter. Even in the s now rich no rthern area of the lower Austrian A lps there are rock-interspersed steep areas under the boundary of the forest. In this area avalanches are released automatically every year.

The aim of the avalanche service lower Aus- tria is to provide information that is required for Fig. 1 Map with the avalanche danger scale, th persons who m ove outside secured ski s lopes February 24 and paths. The avalanche service lower Austria is certainly also attentive about avalanches with damage potential. The lower A ustrian A lps are split into five mountain areas. Each area is rated every day according to the European avalanche Corresponding author address: danger scale. The avalanche service from lower Dr. Arnold Studeregger Austria was established during summer 2006. Klusemannstraße 21 8053 Graz [email protected] +43 316 242 200 3312

350 InternationalInternational Snow Science Snow Workshop Science DavosWorkshop, 2009 Davos 2009, Proceedings

3 AVALANCHE WARNING SERVICE tion from the beginning. During the configuration of the avalanche service lower Austria the stan- In order to be in a position to create a new dards of the surrounding avalanche services efficient system in this short period, they used were taken into account. existing synergies: - Application of existing hydro meteoro- For the operational avalanche service the fol- logical weather stations from the de- lowing standards were defined: partment hydrology - For each mountain area several meteo- - Application of the existing data recall rological weather stations system from the department hydrology - Use of surrounding weather stations - Utilization of experiences in dealing with from other governments and companies natural disaster (ZAMG, Avalanche Service Styria, Wiener Wasserwerke) - 15 min data transfer of meteorological data - Data controlling - For each mountain area one weather- and avalanche annunciator - Training of the weather- and avalanche annunciator - Snow cover analyses two times a week - Publication of the daily avalanche report at 08.00 a.m. - Individual consulting on the telephone between 06.00 a.m. – 4.00 p.m. - Involvement of the weather forecast for the next 12 hours, 24 hours and 72 Fig. 2 meteorological weather station hours (Hochkar) - IT – infrastructure 24 hours every day

The government of lower Austria does not Due to these arrangements the avalanche have experts for avalanches. Therefore the gov- service lower Austria started with very high ernment hires a minimum of three avalanche standards. The quality of avalanche information experts for the operational avalanche warning has been increasing since the beginning and the service. In the seasons 2006/07, 2007/08 and information will improve in the future through 2008/09 the avalanche experts were from the experience and further developments. Central Institute for Meteorology and Geody- namic (ZAMG) Customer Service Styria. These The access statistic to avalanche experts have been working for the www.lawinenwarndienst-niederoesterreich.at Styrian avalanche service since 1975. shows that more and more costumers use this important information every year. In the season The avalanche experts provide the following 2008/09 170.000 costumers were registered. In services: comparison to the season 2007/08 this is an - Writing and publication of the daily ava- increase of 41 % (in the season 2007/08 lanche report 130.000 costumers visited this information plat- - Snow cover analyses form). Compared to the season 2006/07 even - Individual consulting on the telephone more than 74 % increase could be attained. - Individual consulting of public authorities and operational disaster organizations

Another important point in the development and also the evaluation of the avalanche service lower Austria is the annual meeting of the avalanche service and the costumers (alpine police, alpine rescue, mountain guide alliance, Natur- freunde and Alpenverein).

First standards were introduced for the avalanche service lower Austria. It was important to give the costumer the best avalanche informa-

351 International Snow ScienceInternational Workshop, Snow Davos Science 2009, WorkshopProceedings Davos 2009

Fig. 3 In this statistic you can see that the avalanche service from lower Austria is res- pected in Austria. Despite its short existence the avalanche service lower Austria has a very good track record.

4 REFERENCES

Statistic: www.lawinenwarndienst- niederoesterreich.at

Photo: Salzer F., 2008

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