Brain Post: The Hidden Dangers of an Early Season Snowpack Have you ever wondered why avalanche forecasters get so worked up about early-season snow? Those first few storms of the season might seem harmless enough, maybe just enough snow to cover the grass and get us dreaming about powder days ahead. However, here’s the thing: these early-season storms can establish a snowpack that is prone to instability, which persists throughout […] Avalanche Clay Malott | October 2, 2025 1 Comment
History with SnowBrains: The Incredible Notes from a Swiss Avalanche Researcher’s Travels to Western USA in 1949 In 1949, the ski industry in the United States was just beginning to emerge. The first chairlift in the U.S. started spinning at Sun Valley in 1936 as a way of boosting railroad tourism and a handful of other ski areas had been established with rope tows and T-bars. The Forest Service issued the first Special Use Permit for a […] Avalanche Zach Armstrong | September 11, 2025 0 Comments
Nebraska Professor Awarded Grant to Study Rain’s Impact on Snow Melt and Flooding University of Nebraska professor Tirthankar Roy has been awarded a five-year grant to lead what he describes as the most comprehensive study to date on how rain falling on snow can trigger catastrophic flooding. “The work that we are doing is to understand sort of the characteristics of rain-on-snow events, specifically looking into their flood-generating potential,” Roy told Nebraska TV. […] Brains Martin Kuprianowicz | August 5, 2025 0 Comments
Can AI Reliably Forecast Powder Days? When is the next pow day going to be? That is a question that all of us would love to be able to answer. For ski areas, knowing when the snow will come is extremely important for almost every aspect of mountain operations, including when to groom runs and plow roads, when to do avalanche control work, and how many […] Brains Zach Armstrong | November 23, 2023 0 Comments
The Importance of Tracking Early Season Weak Layers in the Snowpack… How Long do They Persist? This video and text was originally published on the Utah Avalanche Center website This is a presentation from Utah Avalanche Center director Mark Staples on tracking early season snow and how it may form persistent weak layers as well as how those layers heal. It’s October and it’s snowing in the mountains. Early season snow is exciting, but it can […] Avalanche AvyBrains | October 27, 2021 1 Comment
Study Finds Avalanche Victims With Long Burial Times (≥60 Min) Have Only 19% Chance of Survival Surviving an avalanche burial is completely correlated with burial time. As a rule of thumb, the longer someone’s been buried the lower the chance of survival. A recent study has been published where researchers looked at all completely buried avalanche victims with a burial duration of ≥60 min between 1997 and 2018 in Switzerland, and drew conclusions from the retrospective data. […] Avalanche AvyBrains | June 11, 2021 0 Comments
What is Graupel? And Why Do Skiers Love It? Graupel: those soft, little hail-looking snowballs that fall from the sky during storms and make the ski conditions awesome. They’re not quite snowflakes and not quite hail pellets—so what are they? The World Atlas defines graupel as such: “Graupel, also referred to as snow pellets or soft hail, is a form of precipitation which forms when super-cooled droplets of water […] Brains WeatherBrains | May 24, 2021 0 Comments
Backcountry Safety Basics Part 1: Snow Science [arve url="https://youtu.be/Eqkz1KQDFNM"] Clay Malott | February 8, 2021 Likes Tweets 0 Comments
Brain Post: Why is Snow White? Snow is made of water, which appears totally clear and not as any specific color—so why is snow white? The answer to this mysterious question is simpler than you may think and has to do with the science of how we percieve it. Related: The Art & Science of Snowflakes Science tells us that snow is frozen water, or a […] Brains Martin Kuprianowicz | January 28, 2021 0 Comments
74 Human-Triggered Avalanches in Colorado in 6 Days | Extremely Weak Snowpack For Much of State Right Now View this post on Instagram A post shared by Friends of CAIC (@friendsofcaic) With much of the inter-mountain West being dry in regards to precipitation for the first part of this winter, snow instabilities have formed. The snowpack is weak in a lot of places—and dangerous. Especially in Colorado. Related: The SnowBrains Podcast – Episode #4 – What’s […] Avalanche AvyBrains | December 16, 2020 1 Comment
Winter Before Halloween in Montana Above 5500-6000 Feet! | Layered snowpack, Windslabs, & 1 Reported Avalanche Conditions report from Oct. 21, 2020 It’s already winter in the high elevation areas of Montana — beware! “Winter before Halloween? Yes, above 5500-6000 feet. Layered snowpack, thin windslabs, at least 1 reported slide. More snow and wind coming. Carry beacons, shovels, and probes if you’re riding or climbing above snowline. Check for conditions updates at flatheadavalanche.org” — Friends of […] Conditions Report SnowBrains | October 22, 2020 0 Comments
VIDEO: Sierra Avalanche Center Shows Current Instability in the Snowpack, Reveals Persistent Weak Layer This observation was taken on Hidden Peak yesterday, March 17, 2020. Listen for persistent weak layer failure. Full Observation can be found on the Sierra Avalanche Center website. Avalanche AvyBrains | March 18, 2020 0 Comments
The Utah Avalanche Center Explains Why North-Facing Slopes Keep Better Snow Ever wonder how the snow on high elevation north facing slopes remains dry powder during such warm weather? The Utah Avalanche Center explained the science behind this in an Instagram post yesterday, Feb. 23: (1) The sun either doesn’t hit the snow it or the sun hits the snow at such a shallow angle that most of the solar radiation is […] Brains SnowBrains | February 24, 2020 0 Comments
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