07 Jan 2012 - new av bulletin

Today the Japan Avalanche Network started their new avalanche bulletin. This is the first time Japan has seen a near-best practice public bulletin and is a significant step forward in public avalanche safety for Japan. Hopefully one day it will be available for other key ski/mountain areas, but for now, congratulations to JAN for this mile stone. The bulletin will not be available everyday, just the weekend, public holidays and mid-week. It should also typically have an English translation in the near future as well. The bulletin provides a lot more than simply stating a Danger Level, with additional details provided for the various avalanche problems we have at the time, likelihood of triggering, size and distribution of avalanches for each specific problem, and also written terrain travel advisory and snowpack description.

This is now my 5th season with the Japan Avalanche Network and as a volunteer snow observer. I am of course please that the efforts to gather snow, weather and avalanche data in the field on a regular is going towards a beneficial cause. Being involved has helped my professional development immensely. I am sorry that some very conscientious JAN snow observers are not around any more to see the results of their volunteer efforts over past seasons.

It should be noted that JAN receives no funding and does not have any sponsors.

The summary information can be found here. The detailed report can be found by clicking on the summary heading and text, or the link that says "more" (in Japanese).

I was teaching the indoor session of an AST 1 Avalanche Course today and so have no backcountry observations to offer. I heard it was cold up there.