Are there public avalanche bulletins in Chile? No.
When it snows this much, avalanches happen.
Unfortunately, there is no system for public avalanche bulletins in Chile. To give you a little background for comparison, in the U.S. there would probably not be a public bulletin in most places except for the fact that the avalanche centers are often an off-shoot of the department of transportation. You think you're getting information for recreation; but it is really for the roads. I am just including this to be fair.
In Chile, most all entities that are affected by avalanches – primarily roads, mines and a few ski resorts – have their own forecasting centers and they do not share their information publicly.
So what do you do? Well, first of all, don't subscribe to the "wait 24-hours" and it's all good. People do get caught and die in avalanches in Chile. It is true that the storms typically come in warmer, with high precip rates and lots of wind – much like our maritime climates. But, especially in the central Andes near Santiago, the elevation changes that equation slightly. The snowpack is easier to predict; but it is not bombproof all the time. Be especially careful of wind slabs, surface faceting during periods of high pressure that gets buried, storm slabs and warm snow avalanches.
Instabilities in the snow in Chile are not nearly as hard to read as say, interior British Columbia in January, but in the absence of professional forecasting, it helps to know something about snow. The terrain is often big and getting caught can be catastrophic.
In Chile, most all entities that are affected by avalanches – primarily roads, mines and a few ski resorts – have their own forecasting centers and they do not share their information publicly.
So what do you do? Well, first of all, don't subscribe to the "wait 24-hours" and it's all good. People do get caught and die in avalanches in Chile. It is true that the storms typically come in warmer, with high precip rates and lots of wind – much like our maritime climates. But, especially in the central Andes near Santiago, the elevation changes that equation slightly. The snowpack is easier to predict; but it is not bombproof all the time. Be especially careful of wind slabs, surface faceting during periods of high pressure that gets buried, storm slabs and warm snow avalanches.
Instabilities in the snow in Chile are not nearly as hard to read as say, interior British Columbia in January, but in the absence of professional forecasting, it helps to know something about snow. The terrain is often big and getting caught can be catastrophic.
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