New avalanche forecasting technologies

NAFT 2000 is a following project to the NAFT project from 1997. The optimization of the regional avalanche prognosis was very successful. Including the exposures of the slopes into the statistical analyses and into the genetic algorithms the probability of hit could be increased on the average by 5% (middle hit rate at avalanche days 85%). With the fact it is pleasing that not only the avalanche days but also the non avalanche days were better detected by the system. So the results are more reliable for the users, because the over-warning rate is more rarely. Also the local, slope-referred avalanche prognosis could successfully be concluded. So it is possible to visualize the danger for individual slope areas. Also the additional specification of relevant factors such as radiation and snow height in the individual avalanche starting zones met large agreement with the users. One of the largest advantages of the presented local prognosis concept is situated further in the fact that no long data collections of many years are necessary for the prognosis. Except the actual data implementation and slight adaptations no time series analyses must be executed as with the regional prognosis.