"Looking into the future, our current snow pack is thin and loosely packed. The weather forecast for the next week is for cold temperatures and hardly any new snow. This will quickly turn the snow cover to weak faceted crystals. So, when we get a significant storm in the future expect widespread avalanches."

Seth Shaw

Model predicts

• Hoar crystal growth in shallow snow pack with large temperature gradients
• Weak layer collapse when loaded by new snow or a skier
• Avalanche release with sufficient displacement or velocity

Model weaknesses

• OVERSIMPLIFIED look at the physics
• Only useful for studying avalanche initiation
• Spatial inhomogeneity is ignored
• Snowpack layering is ignored (but can be easily added)