Jökull - 01.12.1971, Qupperneq 42

Skipuleg gagnasöfnun. Áríðancli er að halda
áfram gagnasöfnun um snjóflóð og auka jafn-
framt nákvæmnina, eins og Olafur Jónsson
ræðir um í greinargerðinni hér að framan.
Engin stofnun stendur því nær að hafa gagna-
söfnunina með höndum en Veðurstofa íslands,
enda hefur hún annazt hana að nokkru. Stað-
bundnir veðurathugunarmenn hafa að vísu
ekki aðstöðu til að kanna upptök og vegsum-
merki snjóflóða. Fela verður það sérstökum
snjóflóðaathugunarmönnum. Áríðandi er, að
hlauprás hvers snjóflóðs sé það vel könnuð, að
hún verði dregin með nákvæmni inn á landa-
bréf í mælikvarða 1:50.000.
S U M M A R Y
The purpose of this article is:
1. To publish the annal of snow avalanches
for the years 1958 to 1971.
2. To show the main locations of snow aval-
anches on maps of Iceland.
3. To remind authorities of constructions
and building on the risk of snow aval-
anches.
4. To encourage regular and well-coordinat-
ed recording of snow avalanches.
In the year 1957 the book „Skriðuföll og snjó-
flóð” (Landslides and Snow Avalanches) by
Ólp.fur Jónsson was published in Akureyri, N,-
Iceland. The book is written in Icelandic, but
the legends of figures and captions of tahles
are also in English. This book is a basic work
on snow avalanches in Iceland. A part of the
book deals with snow and snow avalanches in
general and there is a chapter on snow aval-
anches in other countries but the main part
of the book is devoted to annals of snow
avalanches, i.e. accounts and descriptions of
avalanches, which have caused damage and
thus been recorded. Olafur Jónsson has con-
tinued his annals since the book was published
and the annals for the period 1958 to 1971 are
presented in this article.
Sigurjón Rist has compiled the maps of snow
avalanches in order to point out the regions
of greatest risk. According to the maps these
are:
1. Mid Northern-Iceland.
2. The Northwestern Peninsula.
3. Eastern Iceland.
4. Mýrdalur (The southernmost part of Ice-
land, south of Mýrdalsjökull).
When the maps are used, one should bear
in mind that neither the annals nor the maps
do report the immense number of snow aval-
anches, which fall every year in the deserted
highland mountains. Numerous avalanches that
fall in inhabitated areas are even not reported.
The maps are, however, intended to show all
locations, where snow avalanches have caused
loss of life. Most avalanches which have caused
considerable damage and loss of property are
reported as well as those, which fell on roads
or hindered travelling in some way. Thus the
maps should be relatively good indicators of
the distribution and the risk of snow avalanches
to life and property in the country in the last
centuries.
In this century 326 avalanches are already
reported. They have caused 101 deaths, 49 on
the NW-Peninsula, 37 in N.-Iceland, 10 in E.-
Iceland and 5 in Mýrdalur and its vicinity.
Reports on avalanches in the 19’th and 20’th
century are clear and it is generally easy to
locate the events atcurately, but this does not
always apply to reports before that time.
The year in which a snow avalanche fell,
is indicated on the maps. In Fig. 4 the month
is also indicated with J for January, F for
February and so on. The avalanches in this
century (Fig. 4) could further be divided with
fairly good certainty into dry (Þ) ancl wet (V)
avalanches.
The authors emphasize the necessity of re-
gular and well-coordinated reporting of snow
avalanches and regard it desirable to plot the
course of the avalanches on maps in the scale
of 1:50,000.
S. Rist.
40 JÖKULL 21. ÁR