How to predict the consistency of snow“THE wrong type of snow” became famous as a lame excuse in Britain in February 1991 when, caught out by a cold snap, British Rail blamed severe disruption to its services on problems clearing unusually soft and powdery snow from its tracks. But British Rail had a point. There are, indeed, different types of snow and people who live in mountainous areas, or visit to ski, like to know which ones to expect. Forecasting what sort of snow will fall is not easy. But a pair of researchers at the University of Utah think they have cracked the problem.Jim Steenburgh and Trevor Alcott carried out their research in the Alta ski area, which is about 3,000 metres (10,000 feet) up in the Wasatch range. Good record-keeping at the resort, including precipitation measurements that are taken automatically every hour, allowed them to analyse 457 snowfalls that took place between 1999 and 2007. …
Weather forecasting: Flaky science
