Avalanche!

May 1, 2024 9:26 PM

What the heck bro! Here are 16 videos of avalanches (no audio needed). Just for fun.

Avalanche!
Avalanche!
Avalanche!
Avalanche!
Avalanche!
Avalanche!
Avalanche!
Avalanche!
Avalanche!
Avalanche!
Avalanche!
Avalanche!
Avalanche!
Avalanche!
Avalanche!
Avalanche!

And a landslide.

posted by Toddles (23 comments total)

The Boulder approves:
posted by Playdoughnails at 10:44 PM on May 1 [1 favorite]

Heli bombing in Colorado
Drone footage in BC
Glacier collapse in Kyrgyzstan
posted by yeahwhatever at 10:47 PM on May 1

This video from what amounts to ye olde days shows a car narrowly escaping a boulder much larger than it that comes tumbling onto the road. (Note in the first few frames of the vid if you are watching the top of the hill you can see the rock starting its journey.)

Also, folks, if you find yourself standing in what is clearly an avalanche spillway and stuff starts coming down, move out while you've got time, which there isn't very much of.
posted by maxwelton at 1:40 AM on May 2 [1 favorite]

Gravity is a thirsty mf. Try not to stand under heavy stuff which is precariously held aloft. And if it has been raining a lot be especially careful.

This is also true of loads being lifted by cranes...whose operators have one main job: calculate whether they have the right amount of counter-weight for the load they're lifting. Youtube is rife with proof they often forget to carry the one, or whatever. (Riggers, too, often forget to maybe use their best straps, or they work for a cheap-ass company whose motto is "straps always are nearly frayed-through, get on with it".)
posted by maxwelton at 1:48 AM on May 2

‘Oh Australia is so dangerous you have spiders’! You know what you can probably just brush off your clothes? A spider.

But in Soviet Canada, mountain brushes you off
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 2:20 AM on May 2 [2 favorites]

I have a steep driveway and during the 22/23 epic snow season we got something like 450 inches of snow at our house. Snow banks next to our drive were way over my head. March 31, 2023 we got an insane 3-4 feet overnight. While plowing my drive a snow bank next to me gave way and carried me 6-8 or so feet down the drive . Not enough to cause me an issue but still scary enough as I ended up facedown and in front of my plow, which luckily had turned off when I let go of the handle. Death by driveway avalanche hadn’t been on my list of home-owning risks before….
posted by inflatablekiwi at 3:23 AM on May 2 [4 favorites]

"Gravity Is A Harsh Mistress!"

[warning link it to time-sink TVTropes.com]
posted by Faintdreams at 3:58 AM on May 2

Landslide!
posted by sixswitch at 4:06 AM on May 2 [2 favorites]

If you didn't get all the way down the list, that last avalanche video is way more spectacular than the rest. Don't stop watching before it reaches the camera.

It's not just about the snow, but also the sheer amount of air that a large avalanche is pushing ahead of it.
posted by automatronic at 4:25 AM on May 2 [6 favorites]

Some of these videos are not avalanches. "An avalanche is a rapid flow of snow down a slope"
posted by timdiggerm at 4:51 AM on May 2 [1 favorite]

Timdiggerm, Merriam Webster would like word:

Avalanche: 1st definition: a large mass of snow, ice, earth, rock, or other material in swift motion down a mountainside or over a precipice.

But, you know, Wikipedia, I guess?
posted by Toddles at 6:04 AM on May 2

The OED says "A large mass of snow, mixed with earth and ice, loosened from a mountain side, and descending swiftly into the valley below.", which I think is a clearer way of phrasing what Merriam Webster is trying to say.
posted by timdiggerm at 6:35 AM on May 2

Brittanica:

There are various kinds of avalanches, including rock avalanches (which consist of large segments of shattered rock), ice avalanches (which typically occur in the vicinity of a glacier), and debris avalanches (which contain a variety of unconsolidated materials, such as loose stones and soil).
posted by Toddles at 6:41 AM on May 2 [1 favorite]

National Geographic:

During an avalanche, a mass of snow, rock, ice, soil, and other material slides swiftly down a mountainside. Avalanches of rocks or soil are often called landslides.

Also your wikipedia link has this at the start:

This article is about the sliding of large masses of snow. For rock and debris avalanches, see Landslide. For other uses, see Avalanche (disambiguation)..

They are all Avalanches! Give it up.
posted by Toddles at 6:47 AM on May 2

Avalanche
posted by philip-random at 8:05 AM on May 2

I give it up; you were all right.
posted by timdiggerm at 10:29 AM on May 2

There's a unifying theme here: few of these camera operators seem to know

-- the avalanche moves fast

-- even if the avalanche itself doesn't hit you, the surrounding cloud of snow & ice particles is moving equally fast and yes, it can move uphill to where you are standing

-- the avalanche displaces the air around it, creating a blast front that will hit you even from a "safe" distance away

Watching everyone filming go from "Haha wow awesome!" to "ohhhh shit" is fun, but if this happens near you, maybe run the hell away?
posted by Pallas Athena at 11:16 AM on May 2

Hey I triggered a few avalanches last week! I'll upload a video of one if I can figure out how to do it without doxing myself
posted by meows at 12:20 PM on May 2

(no audio needed) an avalanche victim buried in the snow can hear his rescuers talking , No one hears the victims shouts from under the snow.
posted by hortense at 4:24 PM on May 2

i like the one where the rocks are smashing down the slope, bouncing into the air and crushing everything in their path and after a minute or so the videographer goes inside and closes a very thin wooden door. and then opens it up again immediately
posted by awfurby at 4:49 PM on May 2

Scary scary. I prefer my Avalanches more like this.
posted by los pantalones del muerte at 7:29 PM on May 2

Mod note: One comment and reply deleted. Links have been fixed!!
posted by travelingthyme (staff) at 7:53 PM on May 2

Metafilter and Veritasium must love each other very much. An hour ago the latter launched a 25 minute explainer These Are The Avalanches To Worry About.
A couple of months ago I read a thriller The Snow Tiger [1975] by Desmond Bagley which is also informative for avalancheers . . . it's all in the laminations of successive snowfalls
posted by BobTheScientist at 11:18 AM on May 3