Avalanche buries cars in Colorado

[FleshyManCans]

Check out this news article:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16499980/

A mega-huge avalanche swept a couple cars off the highway in Berthoud Pass. While New England has been getting pounded with rain and warm weather, we here in Colorado have been getting pounded with snow. It's terrible. Commence hate-mail.... now...

Berthoud Pass is a popular backcountry ski destination. I have been there a few times myself. It's also the road to Winter Park, so the slide could have been worse.

[pulverschwein]

Berthoud Pass is a popular backcountry ski destination. I have been there a few times myself. It's also the road to Winter Park, so the slide could have been worse.
Coulda been (but thankfully wasn't) WAY worse. With some of the huge pitches and cliffs on the sides of that road, it's amazing they recovered all the vehicles with apparently only minor injuries to the passengers.

[RR]

So, that's force 3?

[yakk]

They had 70-80 mph winds in the 24 hours preceding the slide. You could still see the wind-loading on the distant peaks on the news reports last night.

[lacman]

So, that's force 3?

RR, are you wondering how big the slide was? Two size ratings are commonly used, and neither will you find in any mainstream news reports. First is the destructive force going from 1-5. D1 is relatively harmless, D5s are the largest avys known (D4 is large enough to destroy several buildings or a substantial section of forest). The other rating is how big it was relative to the slide path, again on a 1-5 scale. Apparently this one was bigger than any they'd seen in recent years on this path(s), so you could say it was a D3R4 or if it were bigger D4R5. That's for the experts to decide. We just know it was huge. A good reminder not to discount the effect of blowing snow, even on bluebird days.

lm

[RR]

That's what I thought..strong enough to sweep cars away...one of the pix shows a long swathe through the forest and the debris fanned out across the road. THe shot I mention was taken at the foot of the debris pile and straight up the path....freaking awesome power....

So, well on the way to being D4 if not already there. D4 was presented to us as powerfull enough to sweep a train off its tracks. From the look of this one maybe it's time to re-write the SOP for local highway safety alerts and the operational guidelines of pre-emptive triggers in that area!

btw, Thanks for The R1-5 info...it adds to our snow day prep for our bifurcated AVI1 course.