Snow depth and snow water equivalent measurements from Benchmark Stations, along a road course, and historic snow course in the Andrews Experimental Forest, 1978 to present

With an increase in emphasis on monitoring climate change impacts and change in the form of precipitation at HJ Andrews Experimental Forest, snow data collection within our climate monitoring program, a snow course to document depths of snow was designed around a dispersed sampling scheme rather than a point intensive scheme as previously employed in the historic Reference Stand snow course. Primary objectives are to document the presence/absence of snow, snow depth, and time of melt-off. Snow depths are verified using stakes placed near the road to allow for routine and frequent observation. Stakes are placed at different locations, elevations and aspects in paired forested/open sites. Time-lapse cameras were deployed at all the stakes to allow for daily measurements beginning in fall 2014. Truthing of points with snow core sampling for snow moisture content (snow water equivalent) is done when possible, usually 1-2 times per year. Cameras are set to take 3 readings per day (09:00, 12:00, 15:00 PST). One snow depth and coverage is extracted from the images per stake per day. Additionally, snow water equivalence (SWE) and snow depth are measured in high precision at a few of the Benchmark Meteorological Stations (BMS). These latter data streams were stored in MS001, but were migrated to MS007 in 2025.