
Show HN: Avanor – Avalanche observation platform - widforss
https://avanor.se/
======
widforss
This is what I've put my soul into lately. The idea is to use radar imagery to
find traces after avalanches.

I don't know what more to tell you, but I would love any feedback!

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gorbypark
Awesome! I'm a huge mapping and avalanche nerd, too. I didn't have much time
to read through the sources of data you are using, but would it be
possible/feasible to expand the covered area to places other than Norway?

-edit- Sorry, I didn't see the part at the top about requesting new coverage areas!

~~~
widforss
Yes! The only thing that are needed to add another country is an elevation
model, and there are global ones one can use if needed. The satellite data is
already there for the whole globe. :)

I have not tried to run an instance with multiple elevation models though. It
is possible the code need some modification to determine what area it should
search for data in, but it shouldn't be too hard.

I'm actually planning to add Sweden rather soon (I'm from Sweden myself), but
for that I will just merge the files from Norway's and Sweden's national
geographical surveys into one file and use in the code.

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forcer
The idea seems great, but I was not able to navigate the interface.

If I understood correctly you have access to past data from satellite. If yes,
it would be fantastic resource to actually validate avalanches that happened.
For that you would need to improve how to find the specific place as well - I
could not figure it out.

e.g. I live in the Pyrenees and often go off-piste snowboarding and see
avalanches, also sometimes I see some avalanches directly from my home as
well. If you give me Pyrenees coverage and better UI I would love to play with
it

~~~
widforss
What browser are you on? Because, IE and Edge does not work right now. This is
simply because I do not have access to those browsers. I will probably just
block them in the future.

If you use another browser, could you please be more specific about what did
not work?

I'll see if I can add the Pyrenees in the coming weeks!

~~~
widforss
Now I have straight out blocked Microsoft web browsers, providing an
explanation to why I use other browsers instead.

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asdf1234asdf123
FWIW, there are a number of avy forecasting groups in the western US (e.g.,
utah, colorado, NWAC in Washington state,...), and they may be interested in
this, you should reach out to them. Also, IIRC, University of Utah has an avi
forecasting program.

~~~
widforss
Could you email me (using either the address in my profile or the one on the
web page) more specific information about these groups, so that I can contact
them?

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carbocation
I wonder if you can train a classifier to detect noise vs avalanche, just to
help clean up the map from the blue noise. That would be a nice later
addition.

~~~
widforss
Noise cancelation would really be nice!

My main objective is to create a proper automatic avalanche detector. For this
however, I will need to get datasets of avalanches observed in the field.

I'm discussing with Swedish authorities to get access to their database, and
the Norwegian is already open. But I feel those datasets are worse than I
would like them to be. My dream dataset would have confirmed non-avalanches as
well, to find out what a false positive looks like. One way to get this would
be to fly a drone over the same area every day for a season, which I think is
feasible.

With that said, if any one knows of some data I could use, open or not, please
contact me!

~~~
folli
The only thing I can think of right now regarding a database of confirmed
avalanches, is the list of confirmed fatal avalanches in Switzerland,
regularly updated: [https://www.slf.ch/en/avalanches/destructive-avalanches-
and-...](https://www.slf.ch/en/avalanches/destructive-avalanches-and-
avalanche-accidents/avalanche-accidents-in-current-year.html)

As per today, it's still at zero for this winter, but there's also a historic
list: [https://www.slf.ch/en/avalanches/destructive-avalanches-
and-...](https://www.slf.ch/en/avalanches/destructive-avalanches-and-
avalanche-accidents/avalanche-accidents-of-the-past-20-years.html)

