H a z a r d

M a n a g e m e n t

a n d

P u b l i c

Wa r n i n g

new guidelinesduring late 1995 and early 1996, it was felt
thatifthesewhy's,where'sandwhat-to-do'scouldbe
agreedupon, then the actuallevels of WHAT (low, moder-
ate, ......extreme, etc., and hazard or danger or potential or
risk or....) would fall into place more easily.This was both
true and false...True that the levels would fall into place,
but False in that there would be more controversy on the
termsused.Themostsignificantdifficultiesrevolved
aroundwhat wordbest described the avalancheproblem--
be it hazard ordanger orrisk orinstability orpotential--
and what word should be used forthe "infamous transi-
tion category" between moderate and high.
As seen in Table2, the official unified risk/danger scale
in use in Europe in 1995utilized the wordconsiderable
forthe"moderatetohigh"category,andthistermwas
adoptedinCanadaas well,althoughnotwithoutsome
controversy (see CanadianExperience below).Also, while
the"official"Europeanscaleformallyendorseddanger
when describing theavalancheratinglevels, andthis word
was the choice of the majority ofEurope and Canada,in
actualpracticerisk,dangerandhazardwere alsobeing
used, almost interchangeably.The US dilemma was then
to find a wayto agreeon a commonterm, likedanger.First,
it was felt that the terms like snowpackinstability orsta-
bilityand avalanchepotential--while good in describing
the actual physical problem--were not universally under-
stood by the public, and were perhapsa step removed from
common public awareness.Public perception seemed to
relate more closely tohazardordangeras something that
would actuallyimpactthem directly. Secondly,whenusage
of the wordhazardwas closely scrutinized, it seemed that
hazardwas notreally what was being forecast.Strictly
speaking, the understandingevolved that hazard exists all
the time whenin avalancheterrain(a consequenceof snow
andsteep slopes),whiledangermorecorrectly refersto
temporalandspatialchangesofthemagnitudeofthe
hazard,changesbrought on by such variables as weather,
slope angle,aspect,etc.On the otherhand, the level of
risk(actualdamagetotheindividual,ratherthanthe
probability of being caught)could be modifiedsignificantly
bytheuserthrough methodschosentoaffect hisorher
exposure to thedanger(e.g., where the usercrossed ava-
lanche paths, what rescue gear the user utilized, etc.).As
isobvioustheevolutionofterminologyrepresenteda
veritablesemanticwonderland.Intheend,however,
dangeremerged as the term of choice--familiar to users as
somethingwhichaffected them,and generallyaccepted
by the forecasters who issued the avalancheinformation.
Considerableoraworkingalternative forthemiddle
rating levelcategory between moderate andhighpresented
another big challenge. Solicitation of suggestions from any
avalanche forecaster possessing a dictionary, thesaurus or
good graspof Englishproducedfew workablechoicesother
thantheobvious--moderatetohigh.Thewordchosen
neededto not only be meaningful in a stand-alone context
forstatements discussing current avalanche danger ("The
avalanchedangertodayisconsider able "),butalso
meaningful in the contextofa forecast when the danger
was expected to change from one level toanother("High
avalanchedangerTuesdaymorning,decreasingand
becomingconsiderable or moderate to high Tuesdayafter-
noon and night.....etc.).Although some initial confusion

over the meaningofconsiderablewas apparentlyovercome
inCanada (seethe Canadian Experience),thewordwas
stillconsideredtobe somewhatambiguousbysomeUS
forecasters.Questionslike"isn'tthereaconsiderable
avalancheproblemwhenthedangerishigh?","doesa
changefrom high to considerablereallyimply a decrease?",
and "why not just say what you mean, moderate to high?"
encouragedthe US adoption of "moderate to high"as the
officialreplacement(atleastforthetimebeing)for
considerable.The end result of all this discussion about a
grandvariety of possibilities to describelevels of avalanche
danger is summarized belowin Table 3.The content of
this table should be officially adopted by the United States
avalanche community in the winter of 1996/97.

THE CANADIAN EXPERIENCE

HISTORY AND CURRENT STATE OF CANADIAN
AVALANCHE INFORMATION

WhenPeterSchaerercamebackfromtheInternational
Commission of Alpine Rescue (IKAR) meeting in 1993he
brought a present for the North American avalanchecom-
munity.Thiswas the European Unified Avalanche Risk
Scale.Like manysurprisegiftsitturned out beingmore
immediately useful to some people than others.The Ca-
nadian AvalancheCentre (CAC) needed little encourage-
ment to use the scale as the Avalanche Bulletin had only
recently started and had been skirting around the issue of
talking aboutlevel ofhazard ordanger.Thiswas partly
due to a slowly building confidence in reporting anything
otherthan reported weather, snow and avalanche condi-
tions.The Bulletinsprepared by the CAC were notfore-
casts .InCanada the twomajororganizations preparing
avalancheinformation for the public used different termi-
nology--inthecaseofNationalParksandKananasakis
Country,one used stabilityratings,the otherhazard.At
the Centre, in a good Canadian fashion we did not want to
take sides so the introduction of adangerscale was well
timed and appropriate for consistency with our IKAR col-
leagues.A memorable meeting was held at Rogers Pass in
the summerof 1994and it was decided that all Canadian
agencies would use thedanger scale.
But let us step back a moment about the larger reasons
whyweneeded tointroduce the"unified scale".Basi-
cally thiswas undertaken to:1) eliminate confusion;2)
allowforbetterunderstanding;and 3)provideformore
uniform dissemination of information.
Sowhyshouldwe dothis?InEurope,inparticular,
and increasingly in North America travelers in avalanche
terrain are goingintoallthestatesand provinces.Itis
confusing for those users of avalanche information to have
different typesofBulletin/Forecast/Informationinevery
area they go.And itbegs the question of the user,"why
are these bulletins so different, do any of them know what
they are talking about?"Credibilitythen becomes an is-
sue.
AsintheUnitedStates,therewasmuchdebatein
Canada aboutthe descriptorsforthe levelsofavalanche
danger.And this has been most recently addressed again
by Walter Bruns.As a result there will be refinements to
the descriptors that will be introducedthis winter, and the

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