Building an avalanche service for Greenland

The gap

Greenland has no national avalanche service. Communities approach steep terrain for hunting, snowmobiling, and transport, and avalanche accidents were happening without any public warning infrastructure. The Greenland Winter Warning Association (GWWA) was kickstarted in response to that gap. Its origin was a research project, SOLO, run as a collaboration between DTU and local snowmobilers in Sisimiut.

Season 2020-2021: mapping the Sisimiut backcountry

The first season was a reconnaissance of the Sisimiut backcountry from an avalanche forecasting standpoint. Working with local snowmobilers, we mapped the recurring avalanche paths and established a set of snow pit locations that could be revisited through the season. Avalanche forecasting began that same winter, framed as a proof of concept: could a small team, combining outside expertise and local knowledge, produce a usable public bulletin?

2021-2023: DMI funding, expansion, GWWA

The results of the first season attracted funding from DMI (the Danish Meteorological Institute), which sponsored two additional years and made it possible to expand the service to Nuuk. The observer team grew to fifteen members across the two cities. GWWA was founded to administrate the funding and give the effort a legal form independent of any single institution.

The DMI grant also opened up training and infrastructure support. NVE, the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate, trained observers and forecasters and extended the Varsom Regobs observation platform to cover the two Greenlandic regions. Additional grants funded forecaster training at SLF Davos in Switzerland.

Operational service

During those two seasons the avalanche bulletin was issued on a regular schedule, following EAWS standards, and published on a dedicated Facebook page. That distribution channel matched how the local audience already consumed information; the page was visited by several thousand users and the service became recognised nationwide.

Live observations · Varsom Regobs

All GWWA field observations, Sisimiut area, 2020-present

Observations logged by the GWWA observer network are public on Regobs, the Norwegian avalanche observation platform extended to cover the Greenlandic regions.

Open on regobs.no ↗

Where it stands now

The DMI funding cycle covered the proof of concept. GWWA demonstrated that an avalanche service in Greenland is workable when it relies on local observers coupled to a small regional forecasting team, and that the public receives the bulletins well. The group is in open discussion with government and other institutions on how to institutionalise the service.