Tailor-made software

The best-known service of the SLF is the avalanche bulletin. A lot more than expert avalanche knowledge is needed to produce the bulletin twice a day. The tailor-made software solutions developed for avalanche warning services are not available through commercial channels. The solutions include the data recording and analysis tools as well as editors required to produce the bulletin; the interactive map for the internet; the programs that give access to the bulletin from the web and smartphones; and many more besides.

Fig. 1: MeteoViewer software for depicting the COSMO and EZMWF meteorological models, radar images and other satellite data.

Analysis tools

The wealth of information required to produce the daily avalanche bulletins is obtained from 180 automatic measuring stations, 190 observers, snowpack models and weather data. Special data recording and analysis tools originated by the software department present the data in a comprehensible form to make the task of the forecasters easier.

Bulletin at the click of a mouse

Producing the actual bulletin also calls for special solutions shaped by the SLF's own requirements. In the bulletin editor, for example, an employee of the avalanche warning service assigns the appropriate danger level to each of the 124 territories of Switzerland at the click of a mouse.

Fig. 2: Bulletin editor "danger map"

He uses another tool, the catalogue of standard phrases, to produce the danger descriptions from a list of predetermined options with the support of a refined search mechanism. Similar editors fulfil a variety of other functions before the publishing application reads the selected information from the database and thus compiles the various avalanche warning products. Alongside the interactive map, these encompass, twice a day, as many as two hundred and more print and special products for third-party website operators, mountain railway and cableway operators, weather services, the media, the control room of the REGA air rescue service, and the electronic situation display of the National Emergency Operations Centre. The software team likewise ensure that the products are available at all times in all the relevant channels – including the White Risk app developed by the SLF for the Android and iPhone operating systems.

Fig. 3: Bulletin editor "snowpack and weather report"

Natural hazard information platform

In addition to the bulletin products, the software experts develop tailor-made solutions for other natural hazards as well. The common natural hazard information platform GIN, for example, offers measured and observation data, forecasts, warnings, models and bulletins for a variety of natural hazards. It gives the federal, cantonal and community safety authorities a quick and clear picture of the key data on current imminent dangers.

Links

• Team Warning and information systems
  
• FAQs – more information about the avalanche bulletin software

Contact

• Matthias Gerber