Avalanches

Avalanches are sudden, the warning signs are almost always numerous before they let loose. Avalanches kill more than 150 people worldwide each year.
Many avalanches are small slides of dry powdery snow. Disastrous avalanches occur when massive slabs of snow break loose from a mountainside and shatter as they race downhill. These moving masses can reach speeds of 80 mph within about five seconds. Avalanches are most common during and in the 24 hours right after a snow storm. Storminess, temperature, wind, slope steepness and orientation, terrain, vegetation, and general snowpack conditions are all factors that influence whether and how a slope avalanches. Different combinations of these factors create low, moderate, considerable, and high avalanche hazards.