Streamline’s AFSOC SOWT-I Team Completes Avalanche Training Course

In support of the 720th STG, Streamline’s SOWT-I Team recently completed a 10-day Avalanche Training and Winter Weather Forecasting course hosted by the Avalanche Institute in Jackson, WY.   Training consisted of both classroom and field environments.  Participants were required to travel in avalanche terrain using skis, split-board or snowboard with snowshoes.  Streamline SOWT-I’s received training on winter weather forecasting, basic ski skills, backcountry ski touring and rescue skills, basis avalanche information and rescue, snowpack development and analysis, terrain analysis and snow profiles, stability analysis, skills testing and avalanche forecasting. Specific course instruction included:

  • Basic avalanche terminology
  • Avalanche terrain – large and small features
  • Formation of the mountain snowpack
  • Formation of persistent weak layers – facets, depth hoar, surface hoar
  • Wet snow metamorphism
  • Stability tests – incorporating strength, structure and propagation potential
  • How weather changes the snowpack
  • Interpreting the avalanche forecast bulletin
  • Field observation of terrain, snowpack, and weather