New Avalanche Bulletin App is Out

by admin in RSS Social News. Posted April 5, 2026

It’s the brainchild of British skier Simon Perry – author of the Tignes and Val d’Isère off-piste guidebooks.

His AvalancheClarity app covers every avalanche bulletin area in Europe.

But it started out as a way of helping backcountry skiers and snowboarders get to grips with the complexity of French bulletins.

Why?

Well, if you’re one of those people who struggles with the French bulletins, you’ll know the drill.

First, you find the Météo-France website.

You work out which of the 36 massifs you need.

You stare at a page of technical French.

You try Google Translate.

And then you get something about “wind plaques” and “persistent fragile layers” and wonder whether you’re safe to ski that north-facing couloir or not.

Simon got tired of watching this happen.

So, he built a free app that takes the daily Météo-France avalanche bulletin and translates it into English and seven other languages.

Not with Google Translate.

With AI that actually knows what “plaque à vent” means.

AvalancheClarity. (Left – watchlist with bulletins from France, Switzerland & Italy. Right – AI-translated bulletin with interactive glossary.

1,000 Downloads in a Week

AvalancheClarity launched in late March and hit 1,000 installs before the month was out.

The response from the off-piste community was immediate.

“As someone who relies on accurate avalanche information across different Alpine regions, having bulletins instantly and clearly translated into English is a gamechanger,” says Iain Innes, Team GB Ski Mountaineer.

“This app makes critical safety information far more accessible for international mountain users.”

AvalancheGeeks, the well-known avalanche safety trainers, were equally enthusiastic.

“We’d wholeheartedly recommend it to any non-French speaker skiing in the French Alps,” they posted.

“The layout and ease of use actually surpasses the Météo-France app, so we’d suggest it to native French speakers too: set your language to French and you get a better product, without the ads.”

The Marmalade Ski School has been running a Facebook page manually translating the 3 Valleys avalanche forecast into English.

After discovering AvalancheClarity, it posted: “I think this app will provide a better service! Well done to them.”

What makes AvalancheClarity different from simply running the bulletin through a translation tool?

“Avalanche terminology is precise,” Simon says.

“The European Avalanche Warning Services have agreed standard terms across languages:

‘wind slab’ not ‘wind plaque’;
‘considerable’, not ‘marked’.

“Generic translation tools don’t know this. AvalancheClarity does, drawing on a database of official terminology from the major European forecast bodies,” it said.

“The app highlights technical terms throughout the bulletin text. Tap one and you get a plain-language definition.”

Simon Perry, developer of the AvalancheClarity app. Image c/o Simon Perry

From France to All of Europe

The latest update, released on 2nd April, covers 14 countries, every avalanche bulletin area in Europe.

Switzerland gets the full treatment, with all 134 SLF micro-regions available in eight languages.

All 36 French massifs are covered, 12 with full AI translation, the rest in original French with interactive weather charts.

For Austria, Italy, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Spain, Andorra, Slovenia, Slovakia, Czechia, Finland and Scotland, you can tap any region on the map to open the official bulletin directly in the app.

The map is searchable.

Type in a ski resort – any of 1,100 across Europe – a town name, or a massif, and the app takes you straight to the right bulletin.

Or you can just tap “Use My Location” and let GPS do the work.

AvalancheClarity app. (Left – Swiss bulletin with border region warnings and glossary. Right – Every avalanche region in Europe on one searchable map).

“Every winter I see skilled skiers heading into the backcountry without having read the avalanche bulletin,” says Simon.

“Sometimes they can’t read French.

“Sometimes the bulletin is buried behind confusing links or mixed in with 15 other regions.

“The information exists, it’s detailed, it’s updated daily, and it’s free.

“AvalancheClarity removes all those barriers.”

Simon Perry, developer of the AvalancheClarity app. Image c/o Simon Perry

Avalanche bulletins are written in the evening for the next day, but forecasters sometimes revise them in the morning when conditions don’t match their predictions.

By 10am, you’re probably already on the mountain.

AvalancheClarity sends you a notification the moment a new bulletin, or a revision, is published for the regions you’ve subscribed to.

You can set it so you’re only notified if a bulletin you’ve already read gets revised.

That’s the kind of detail that can make a difference.

On 30th March Simon launched an embeddable widget that any website can add with a single line of code.

It means that ski resorts, mountain guides, chalet companies – anyone – can now display the current avalanche bulletin for their area directly on their own site.

It supports GPS coordinates, region codes and even multi-point touring routes. There’s a configuration page at avalancheclarity.com/widget that makes setup straightforward.

AvalancheClarity is free, requires no account, and works offline.

Bulletins download automatically so you can read them on the mountain without a data connection.

It’s available on Android and iOS and there’s a full website version at avalancheclarity.com.

It is, of course, an AI translation tool, and the app is clear about that.

There’s a disclaimer on every page reminding you to check the official source.

But as a way of making sense of a bulletin when you’re standing in a lift queue in Val d’Isère?

Here at PlanetSKI we thinks it’s hard to think of anything better.

See here to download the AvalancheClarityApp.

Simon Perry, developer of the AvalancheClarity app. Image c/o Simon Perry

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