Research on avalanches caused by stability of snow cornices developed by blowing snow

Our research is aimed at improving the prediction accuracy of avalanches caused by the stability of snow cornices developed by blowing snow in the Niseko region, one of Japan's international ski resorts. For this purpose, several studies were conducted in cooperation with local authorities and ski resorts in the Niseko region. Specifically, a network of anemometers was installed and a system was developed to estimate areal wind conditions and snow redistribution over the entire mountain area from wind observation data. To validate the developed system, the snow cover distribution over the entire mountain area for two winters was obtained by laser survey using an aircraft. In addition, several portable ultrasonic anemometers were installed on the slopes where snow cornices develop to observe detailed wind conditions, and small LiDAR was used to continuously survey snow cornice development. We sampled snow in the developing snow cornice and analyzed its microstructure using X-ray computed tomography imaging. The presentation presents a first analysis.