The Rainy Continental snow and avalanche climate: International comparison with 40 years of snow cover modeled in the Chic-Chocs, northeastern Appalachians mountains.

This study provides a comprehensive analysis of the snow and avalanche climate of the Chic-Chocs region of the Gasp Peninsula, located in the northeastern Appalachians of eastern Canada.The data revealed two major components of the snow and avalanche climate: a cold snow cover combined with a maritime influence causing melt/ice layers through rain-on-snow events.The CRCM6-SNOWPACK model chain was good at representing the seasonal mean of climatic indicators, snow grain type and an avalanche problem type that well represented the investigated snow and avalanche climate of the study region.The global comparison shows that the snow and avalanche climate is different from other areas in western North America, but similar to Mt. Washington (New Hampshire, USA) and central Japan.We show a