Forecaster

Sue Burak
Avalanche Forecaster

Sue enjoys big winters. Sue's very first avalanche forecasting job was during the winter of 1982-83. Working many years as a state snow surveyor provided ample opportunities to refine route finding skills and avalanche awareness. Lately, winters find her stressing over avalanche conditions above the community of Aspendell where she has been the avalanche forecaster for Inyo County since 1998. She learned about snowpack energy balance as a modeler for a NASA Antarctica project and developed model input criteria for a physically based snow process model. After the persistent depth hoar layer of 2004-2005, she was inspired to finish writing a research paper on eastern Sierra avalanche climatology.