| Summary: | The French snow-cover numerical model CROCUS was tested with respect to avalanche
forecasting issues and hydrological applications under two specific climatic conditions. Mt.
Fidelity at Glacier National Park (Selkirk Mountains) and Blackcomb Mt. Resort (South coast
Mountins) were chosen for the experiments. These sites are characterized by deep snow-packs (3
to 4 meter snow-pack is common) with moderate snow-pack temperature gradients in the order
of 5 °C/m. Numerous time periods can also commonly experience 10 °C/m to 15 °C/m gradients
as well as isothermal temperature distributions. Such snow-pack characteristics offer the
possibility to assess the performances of the model under various new conditions that differ from
previously published work. CROCUS proved itself being very efficient for modeling snow-depth,
density and temperature profiles, which are parameters considered important for hydrological
modeling. Results show that good performance of the grain simulation is only obtained for
particular ranges of snow-pack temperature gradients. For values close to 5 °C/m it is sometime
difficult to achieve good simulations and the model has a tendency to mistakenly emphasize facets
formation. Suggestions are proposed for the remediation of this behavior.
CROCUS' heat exchanges simulations at the surface of the snow-cover were processed as an
attempt to track surface hoar occurrences. Encouraging results are shown. === Applied Science, Faculty of === Civil Engineering, Department of === Graduate
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