If you are heading to the Isere, Meteo France is trialing a new avalanche bulletin from the 1st - 26th March which is meant to be easier to understand for non-experts and people who don’t read much French. The bulletin will be prepared after the main bulletin on a best effort basis.

http://www.meteo.fr/extranets

login : TestBRA
mot de passe : BRA38

If you are familiar with the Utah or Catalan bulletin you will understand the Meteo France version. A mountain gives an altitude split indicating where the avalanche risk increases (this is often due to rain refreezing and stabilizing the lower snowpack). A rose shows which aspects have the highest risk. A separate bulletin will be issued for each of the mountain ranges: Chartreuse, Belledonne, Grandes-Rousses, Oisans and Vercors.

While using Black and White is maybe not a bad idea if you want to print the bulletin the reports currently lack the visual information offered by Utah or the Catalans. One wonders why they don’t start with one of these as the basis?

http://utahavalanchecenter.org/advisory/slc
http://www.igc.cat/web/gcontent/en/allaus/igc_allaus_butlleti_occ_grafic.php

The Scottish Avalanche Information Service have been using a new avalanche bulletin this year

http://www.sais.gov.uk/page_lochaber.asp

It did take me a minute or two to get my head around it, but then I’ve not got a reputation for speed. Apparently this was developed when they realised that most of the users would glance at the “number” and not bother with the detail, now there are no numbers and they have tried to represent the detail graphically.

Yes nice simple clear bulletin. Not sure why the French are agonizing so much over this but still.

Rumour is that the French will drop the Considerable risk next year, instead the risk levels will run: low, moderate, high, very high, extreme. This is due to the number of accidents at risk levels 3 and 4. They think High will reinforce that risk level 3 is not average.