RESEARCH - GEOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION SYSTEM (GIS)

Data has been automatically collected from various remote avalanche weather stations located at the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort since the early 1970’s and from eight remote backcountry locations since 2001. Daily visits to snow study plots at the resort have supplemented this automated data collection program. Concurrently records of avalanche mitigation efforts and resultant avalanche activity have been kept for the resort and avalanche events observed or reported in the backcountry.

This information was meticulously collected and recorded by Snow Ranger Gary Poulson in a format that has been continued by his predecessors to the present day. Gary’s goal was to create a historical record that could eventually be used to explore the relationship between occurring meteorology and resultant avalanche activity.

The development of computer and Geographical Information System (GIS) technology has enabled Gary’s goal to become a reality. Since 1999 GIS specialist Chris McCollister and avalanche forecaster Bob Comey have been converting this historical data into an electronic format. The next step has been to work on methods for analyzing and displaying this data. A brief summary of the work conducted on this important project follows. Publications associated with these efforts are also listed.

Spatially Analyzing and Displaying Historical Avalanche Data Using GIS

Many ski areas and mountain highways in the U.S. have extensive historical records of avalanche activity. However, these data are only useful for operational avalanche forecasters if they can be quickly searched and if the data can be displayed appropriately.

The Forest Service National Avalanche Center worked with Chris McCollister, who was then a graduate student in the Department of Earth Sciences at Montana State University, to investigate techniques for searching historical databases and displaying avalanche data. This work has formed the basis for Chris' MS thesis. As a first step, Chris used a Geographic Information System (GIS) to overlay topographic data, an orthophoto, and a digitized avalanche path map for Jackson Hole Ski Area in Wyoming. The digitized avalanche map was created by Bob Comey, lead avalanche forecaster for Jackson Hole Mountain Resort.

The map above was created from a digital orthophoto overlaid with a 3 m digital elevation model. The lines represent size 2, 3, and 4 (red lines) avalanches, and a size 5 (purple line) avalanche for Laramie Bowl.

Once a map was created for the entire ski area, Chris linked the map to a sophisticated database program he wrote, GeoWAX (Geographic Weather and Avalanche eXplorer). The purpose of GeoWAX is to allow the avalanche forecaster to interact with their data. They can pick target values for a day (i.e., 12 inches of snow with moderate northwest winds) and create a probability map for all the avalanche paths in the ski area based on their historical data.

This is the GeoWAX interface. The map at the upper left shows all the avalanche paths and their probabilities of avalanching under this weather scenario. The rose diagram at the upper right shows the probability of avalanching for various aspect/elevation combinations for the entire mountain.

McCollister, C., K. Birkeland, K. Hansen, R. Aspinall, R. Comey. 2003. Exploring multi-scale spatial patterns in historical avalanche data, Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, Wyoming. Cold Reg. Sci. Tech. 37(3), 299-313. [Abstract] [Article]

McCollister, C.M. 2004. Geographic knowledge discovery techniques for exploring historical weather and avalanche data. M.S. Thesis, Department of Earth Sciences, Montana State University. 106 pp. [Article PDF (2.8 MB)]

McCollister, C., K. Birkeland, K. Hansen, R. Aspinall, R. Comey. 2002. A probabilistic technique for exploring multi-scale spatial patterns in historical avalanche data by combining GIS and meteorological nearest neighbors with an example from the Jackson Hole Ski Area, Wyoming. Proceedings of the 2002 International Snow Science Workshop, Penticton, BC, Canada, 109-116. [Article (2 MB)]