Coupling of an Atmospheric Prediction Model with a Distributed and Snow Cover Model and Development of a Visualization Package

This project tries to create improved possibilities to estimate the avalanche danger, aiming at a decrease in the substantial annual loss of life and property due to this natural phenomenon. The research is centered on aspects of the numerical modeling of the state of the snow cover. The Swiss Federal Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research (SLF) in Davos currently works on the development of several numerical models, which shall lead to decisive improvements in the avalanche warning process. These models describe details of the snow cover, snow drift and the energy balance and are already partly in operational use, although not coupled to each other and producing results for individual points rather than for comprehensive geographic areas. Furthermore the models are just operated in an analysis mode, using as input the observations of meteorological and hydrological stations. The research work starts with the coupling of the three models. Then the constructed chain of models is modified in a way that allows, beside the currently used pure analysis mode, the production of true predictions of the state of the snowpack. This is accomplished by delivering parts of the input data of the coupled models by the Lokal- Modell (LM), a non-hydrostatic atmospheric prediction model of the German Weather Service (DWD). "Downscaling" procedures have to be designed and applied to the output of the LM, lowering the original horizontal grid space of 7 km considerably in order to produce high-resolution input grids for the coupled models, covering individual mountain ridges and slopes. Finally, a comprehensive, up-to-date and web-based visualization package of the numerical results of the coupled model output is developed. This graphical user interface will be designed according to the requirements and specific needs of warning professionals.