Backcountry skiing and snowboarding are becoming popular ways to recreate on snow outside of a ski resort setting. However, there are additional dangers that come from skiing on ungroomed snow outside of a ski resort. Avalanche forecasters integrate daily snow observations with weather forecasts and snowpack history to issue daily estimates of how likely avalanches are. For this project, BIDS Global Environmental Change Research Scholar R.J. Cody Markelz collaborates with the Mount Shasta Avalanche Center and the US Forest Service to visualize historic avalanche data and develop probabilistic models to help avalanche forecasters better predict avalanches. The project involves webscraping, database design, probabilistic models, and human decision making in the backcountry. All the code will be open-source. You can follow along with the project by visiting Cody's Blog: https://www.codymarkelz.com/#category=avalanche .
The key collaborators on this project are Avalanche Forecasters Nick Meyers, Casey Glaubman, Eric Falconer, and Sam Clairemont of the Mount Shasta Avalanche Center.
