New Parks Canada Avalanche warning system
The good folks at Parks Canada have just launched a new avalanche warning system to help inform you before you head out into the backcountry this season.
It takes you to a Google map, where you will see national park boundaries and danger ratings. From here you can drill down further into the warnings.
check it out here:http://avalanche.pc.gc.ca
Clicking on any of the regions will take you to a close-up map for that particular region.
From here, you can select "show weather stations", and wind sock icons will appear. We have made seventeen of our remote weather stations available for viewing. You can see temperature, wind, and snowdepth from the past 24-hours. It might be a few hours old when you see it, and remember that weather station data can be notoriously suspect from riming or other conditions that effect the sensors. So take the data with a small grain of salt - if it reads -72, that is probably not correct! Not all stations have all sensors; some just have wind and temperature, for example.
The bulletins themselves are now mostly graphical, with a short editorial from our forecasters relating to specific avalanche problems. Much of what you used to get from the text is now represented with graphics. Learn how to read these and you will get a snapshot of the mountain conditions quickly.
Bookmark this site on your mobile phone, as you can get all of the same information formatted for Blackberry, iPhone and Android.
You can also, sign up via Twitter for instant notification of a new bulletin, and the danger rating.
The Canadian Avalanche Centre will be following suit shortly, and we expect to see a common avalanche bulletin template for all regions within the month.
Check it out, stay infored and ski safe.