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Measuring Snow

For discussion of DIY weather equipment - sensors, accessories, improvements to existing kit etc
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Charlie
Posts: 363
Joined: Thu 04 Feb 2010 12:22 pm
Weather Station: 1wire-Cumulus & Fine Offset
Operating System: Windows 7
Location: Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, Canada

Measuring Snow

Post by Charlie »

We are rapidly approaching the time when my rain guage turns into a block of ice for about 4 or 5 months, and it's a lot more interesting to measure snow fall. So, any ideas on how to do that?

I've toyed with the idea of something like a traditional rain guage - I can come up with a way to measure how high the snow is inside, but it would need to be emptied every day. And of course snow blows around, unlike rain that tends to stay in the same place once it's down... And it packs, melts and otherwise changes volume over time!

Maybe I should just go for total depth on the ground on an hourly basis, and let the value go up and down over the season. It would then be easy to calculate not only snow falls, but also the melt rate when spring comes.

Thoughts? Comments?
Gina
Posts: 1885
Joined: Sat 21 Feb 2009 12:41 pm
Weather Station: Nothing working ATM - making one
Operating System: OS X, Linux Mint, Win7 & XP
Location: Devon UK

Re: Measuring Snow

Post by Gina »

I'm planning to make up a heater for my rain gauge and melt any snow or ice but I don't think that would suit you. More suitable might be a graduated pole stuck in the ground - it could be marked in feet and inches or whatever units you use. You might want several as snow varies in depth as it's blown around. I can't think of any automatic way of measuring snow depth though there may well be such things.
Gina

Sorry, no banner - weather station out of action. Hoping to be up and running with a new home-made one soon.
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