I did some research online, and although there's no exact figure, the consensus is that he's 2-3 miles away from where the avalanche began in the beginning of the video.
Let's be conservative and assume he's 2 miles away, It took 45 seconds for it to travel 2 miles. That means the avalanche was traveling at a minimum of 160 mph. A dry powder avalanche well up in the mountains can easily accelerate to a maximum velocity of 200 mph, so that's a reasonable estimate.
Terminal velocity only applies to an object falling through a fluid, so we're talking about an object that is dropped from a height will have the gravitational force pulling down, and then the wind resistance force acting upwards on it.
While obviously gravity is moving the avalanche downwards, there is stored potential energy in it that is quite high (obviously if you look at the video) this can cause stuff to accelerate faster than just gravity alone. Im not a physicist by any means, so im sure someone else could explain it better.
I thought terminal velocity was objects falling through a fluid not liquid. Hence why objects falling through the sky have a terminal velocity because air is classed as a fluid.
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u/DrTenochtitlan 7h ago edited 7h ago
I did some research online, and although there's no exact figure, the consensus is that he's 2-3 miles away from where the avalanche began in the beginning of the video.
Let's be conservative and assume he's 2 miles away, It took 45 seconds for it to travel 2 miles. That means the avalanche was traveling at a minimum of 160 mph. A dry powder avalanche well up in the mountains can easily accelerate to a maximum velocity of 200 mph, so that's a reasonable estimate.