Avalanche Slams into Mt Hutt’s Snowmaking Building

[Mark]

In case you missed the post from yesterday (It’s Dumping Down Under!) New Zealand just got hammered with snow. At Mt Hutt the storm dropped 40 inches of snow in 20 hours!  This led to 15 foot snow drifts and  extremely high avalanche danger. Here are some photos of an avalanche that slammed into the resorts snowmaking building.


So the snow keeps falling! Another 40 cms is forecast over the next 24 hours. The avalanche risk is extremely high right now – this pic shows the aftermath of an avalanche that hit our snowmaking building at about 4pm yesterday. Our patrol team have started using expolisives to trigger avalanches at both ends of the road. We also have snow clearing machinery working from both ends. Progress at the top is slow due to 5m + deep drifts but we have reached Scotts Saddle from the bottom, It goes without saying, the road is closed to all traffic as the avalanche hazard, even at lower altitudes, is still very high and we don’t want anybody to get in the way of the road crew.
http://unofficialnetworks.com/avalanche-slams-mt-hutts-snowmaking-building-40-snow-20-hours-123369/

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