Brief communication: Comparison of in situ ephemeral snow depth measurements over a mixed-use temperate forest landscape

Abstract

The accuracy and precision of snow depth measurements depend on the measuring device and the conditions of the site and snowpack in which it is being used. This study compares collocated snow depth measurements from a magnaprobe snow depth probe and a Federal snow tube in an ephemeral snow environment. We conducted three snow depth sampling campaigns from December 2020 to February 2021 that included 39 open-field and coniferous-, mixed-, and deciduous-forest sampling sites in Durham, New Hampshire, United States. For all sampling campaigns and land cover types, with a total of 936 paired observations, the magnaprobe snow depth measurements were consistently deeper than those of the snow tube. There was a 12 % average difference between the magnaprobe (14.9 cm) and snow tube (13.2 cm) average snow depths with a greater difference in the forest (1.9 cm) than the field (1.3 cm). This study suggests that snow depth measurements using a Federal snow tube can avoid overprobing with an ephemeral snowpack in forested environments.