Velocity distributions in the head of cold-dry snow avalanches

Vienna

2025

1 S.

Sonderdruck

13465S

40005895

Snow avalanches establish several flow regimes ranging from highly turbulent and intermittent flow in cold powder snow avalanches to uniform sliding in warm dense plug flow avalanches. To assess the different flow regimes, radar observations proved useful as they are independent of visibility conditions, but more importantly penetrate through the covering suspension powder cloud and measures the denser flow underneath. Here we focus on data from pulse Doppler radar that tracks the whole velocity spectrum in time and space.