What is an avalanche?
- Huge mass of ice and snow that breaks away from the side of a mountain and surges downward at great speed.
- Three main kinds: wet-snow, dry-snow and slab avalanche
- Wet-snow avalanches usually occur in the spring
- Dry-snow avalanches are the more deadly ones.
- In slab avalanche, a huge chunk of solid snow breaks away from a slope, sliding across a layer of loose snow crystals lying beneath