An avalanche is a rapid, gravity-driven flow of snow, ice, and often entrained rock and debris that propagates downslope once the shear stress within a snowpack exceeds its shear strength. It emerges from mechanical instabilities in stratified snow layers, commonly at interfaces between weak layers and overlying cohesive slabs, triggered by loading, temperature gradients, or external perturbations. Avalanches can exhibit distinct flow regimes, including slab avalanches with brittle fracture and propagating crack fronts, loose-snow avalanches with point-release dynamics, and powder-snow avalanches characterized by turbulent, dilute suspensions. Their behavior is studied using snow mechanics, rheology, and fluid dynamics to model initiation, propagation, and runout.
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