Help & how it works

Snowdesk brings together official avalanche bulletins from three providers — SLF (Switzerland), ALBINA (Austria/EUREGIO), and Météo-France — onto a single interactive map, with a consistent layout for every region and every day.

You don't need an account to browse: pick a region on the map, read today's danger rating and avalanche problems, or scrub back through the season to see how conditions have evolved. Signing in unlocks extras such as email alerts and saved favourite locations.

Every bulletin page shows a danger rating on a five-level scale (Low to Very High), and one or more "avalanche problems" — the specific hazards driving that rating, such as fresh wind slab or a persistent weak layer — each with the aspects and elevations where it applies.

For a full walkthrough of the danger scale, subdivisions, and how to read the avalanche-problem cards, see the dedicated guide: How to read a bulletin.

The band at the top of every bulletin page shows the region name, the date, and a weather icon and condition label — clear, cloudy, snowing, and so on — for that day. Its colour and icon shift between day and night styling to match the actual sunrise and sunset for the region.

When you scrub back to a past date, the header shows the day or night look based on your current clock time in the region's timezone — not the time of day when that bulletin was first issued.

The map colours every region by its current avalanche danger level, from pale green (Low) through to red (Very High). Use the search box to jump straight to a region by name, the locate-me button to centre the map on your position, and pinch or scroll to zoom and pan. The info panel in the corner shows the legend and the current data sources.

A basemap picker lets you switch between the standard map style and each country's national mapping-agency basemap (Swisstopo, IGN, basemap.at) where available.

An overlay toggle shows your saved favourite pins directly on the map, alongside the resorts layer.

A community-reports overlay shows anonymised, publicly-shared field observations from other Snowdesk users on the map.

The Report button lets you submit a quick field observation — conditions you've seen in person — for the region you're viewing.

Favourites let you pin specific spots — a resort, a trailhead, a favourite line — directly on the map. Sign in, then use "Add a favourite pin" to drop a pin at any point.

Each favourite carries its own multi-day point forecast — temperature, snowfall, and conditions for that exact location — alongside the region's avalanche bulletin, so you can see both together.

Every favourite also has its own page you can bookmark or share — open it from "My favourites" or from "Your favourites here" on that favourite's region bulletin page.

Field observations are quick, one-tap reports of what you've actually seen out on the snow — recent avalanche activity, snowpack signs, or general conditions — for the region you're viewing.

Sign in, then use the Report button on the map or a bulletin page to submit one. Reports feed into the community-reports overlay so other users can see recent, real-world observations alongside the official bulletin.

The Observations page lists field reports from the last 48 hours, newest first — a quick way to see what other users have spotted recently without opening the map.

Sign in to view it. Your own reports always appear, marked "You". Other users' reports appear only when you have the community-reports overlay enabled, and their times are rounded to the nearest 15 minutes to keep individual reports from being pinpointed.

The scrubber along the bottom of the map lets you drag through the whole avalanche season, day by day, to see how conditions have changed for a region over time.

The calendar glyph on a bulletin page opens a month grid instead, colour-coded by that day's danger rating, so you can jump straight to a specific date without scrubbing through every day in between.

Snowdesk accounts are passwordless by default: enter your email address and follow the link that's sent to you — no password to remember. You can optionally set a password, or register a passkey on your device, from the account setup page.

Once signed in, subscribe to a region from its bulletin page to get an email whenever a new bulletin is published for it. Manage or remove your subscribed regions at any time from the account menu, or unsubscribe with one click from any alert email.

Snowdesk can be installed as an app on your phone or computer. Look for an "Install" or "Add to Home Screen" option in your browser's address bar or share menu — once installed, it opens in its own window without any browser chrome.

Pages you've already visited load instantly on repeat visits, even with a poor connection, because the app shell is cached on your device. Avalanche data itself is always fetched fresh from the network — Snowdesk never shows you a stale danger rating from the cache.