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2025 Archive Index - All Editions

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New Avalanche Rescue Tech To Be Tested This Winter

A new smartphone location technology for avalanche victims will be tested in Kutchan this winter. The system was developed by the Japanese telecommunications company Softbank and uses Wi-Fi technology to quickly find people – or more accurately find their cell phones – lost in the snow.

Searching for mobile phones to find people is nothing new, but existing methods using GPS and drones to locate a smartphone typically yield a target area with a 20m radius, which may take many hours to search. The new method to be tested entails a small antenna attached to a rescue team member’s smartphone, in conjunction with a drone, that can detect the Wi-Fi signals actually emitting from the victim’s phone. This may be able to narrow its location to a radius of a few metres, even if buried under snow.
More ... (PowderLife)

Kyrgyzstan brings Dolon Avalanche station back to life

Perched high in the Son-Kul Range the Dolon Avalanche Station has come back to life. First built in 1946, the station has been revived, thanks to a UNDP initiative supported by the government of Japan. Since 2020, regular meteorological monitoring has resumed, and in 2023, the upgraded facility officially reopened. With real-time data collection every three hours — including temperature, wind, snow cover, and precipitation — the station serves as a critical early warning outpost for avalanche-prone areas. “Our task is to monitor avalanche risks daily,” says Nurbek Isabaev, head of the Dolon station. “Every ten days we conduct detailed studies — measuring snow density, structure, and temperature — to predict the likelihood of avalanches.”

The station tracks 17 hazardous areas along the vital Bishkek-Naryn-Torugart highway, especially the treacherous Kyzyl-Bel pass. It also monitors danger zones along other key roads, including Aksai-Torugart and Aktalaa-Kazarman. When the risk is high, Dolon alerts authorities to temporarily close road segments, preventing potential disasters — especially during winter months when freight trucks from China use the route daily.Three avalanche monitoring stations — in Dolon, Chapchym, and Bashky-Terek — have been established to strengthen national preparedness. Together, they provide real-time hazard data, improve coordination, and reduce response times.
Source ... (Daryo.uz)

New improved models for snow, rock and ice avalanches

A new 3D simulation tool developed by ETH and SLF researchers now allows for significantly more accurate predictions of complex alpine mass movements, supporting alpine risk management. "While classical depth-averaged models are very useful for first-order estimates, many have difficulties when dealing with rugged, irregular terrain where flow behavior is highly three-dimensional." That's the conclusion drawn by Johan Gaume, Professor of Alpine Mass Movements at ETH Zürich and the WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF. Models technically termed "depth-averaged" do not calculate every single movement within a landslide or avalanche. Instead, they estimate an average flow—essentially describing how fast and how thick the flow is, and in which direction the entire mass moves across the ground.

Widely used tools in engineering practice for modeling snow avalanches, rock avalanches and debris flows are typically based on 2D depth-averaged methods. These assume that the rock and water flow is shallow and remains in constant contact with the terrain, resulting in continuous friction. "In contrast, our 3D model allows particles to detach from the surface, reducing ground friction and accurately capturing airborne phases—this is critical for simulating flow behavior and runout in steep or complex terrain," Gaume explains.
Source ... (Phys.org)