IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/nathaz/v24y2001i1p75-95.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Major Snow Avalanche Cycle of February 1986 in the Western United States

Author

Listed:
  • Karl Birkeland
  • Cary Mock

Abstract

Snow avalanches are a significant hazard in mountainous environments around the world. This paper investigates the major February 1986 avalanche cycle that occurred in the western United States, and broadly analyzes the avalanche, snowpack, and weather conditions at twenty sites. These analyses suggest that the avalanche cycle resulted from the interaction of a relatively `normal' snowpack with an exceptional storm event, which was particularly noteworthy for the amount of precipitation it produced. Composited 500-hPa anomaly maps show the event resulted from an uncommonly persistent blocking pattern that resulted in a strong zonal flow and copious moisture being funneled over the western United States. Understanding severe and widespread avalanche cycles may improve our long-term forecasting of these events, and help mitigate theresulting avalanche activity. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 2001

Suggested Citation

  • Karl Birkeland & Cary Mock, 2001. "The Major Snow Avalanche Cycle of February 1986 in the Western United States," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 24(1), pages 75-95, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:nathaz:v:24:y:2001:i:1:p:75-95
    DOI: 10.1023/A:1011192619039
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1023/A:1011192619039
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1023/A:1011192619039?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jakob Abermann & Markus Eckerstorfer & Eirik Malnes & Birger Ulf Hansen, 2019. "A large wet snow avalanche cycle in West Greenland quantified using remote sensing and in situ observations," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 97(2), pages 517-534, June.
    2. Peter Höller, 2009. "Avalanche cycles in Austria: an analysis of the major events in the last 50 years," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 48(3), pages 399-424, March.
    3. Jeremy Spencer & Walker Ashley, 2011. "Avalanche fatalities in the western United States: a comparison of three databases," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 58(1), pages 31-44, July.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:nathaz:v:24:y:2001:i:1:p:75-95. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.