I sense that over the time I’ve been reading and assessing different avalanche forecasts (I’ve spent a decade roughly each in Montana, Colorado, and Oregon), they have trended towards more graphical representations and less text. In other words, it is relatively easy for those who choose to digest critical portions of an avalanche forecast…
The Swiss Way: Expanding the Avalanche Danger Scale
Response
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I’ve talked about this with a few very experienced friends, and I understand there would be limitations, but I think we might be better off with a 4 step scale. I think, and it’s been suggested in a couple of recent papers, that most users still think of the danger scale as linear when the forecasters and professionals understand it as exponential. So the casual user looks at “considerable” and because it’s in the middle thinks of it as about an average risk day. I also think the “extreme” category is functionally useless. With a 4 step scale your brain automatically understands if this is a more or less dangerous day. One thing I’m sure of, this new Swiss scale would fly far over the heads of most of my friends and acquaintances who have a more basic level of experience.
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