During the last 4 days especially, we have had large diurnal swings in SWE. I can understand snow melting off in the morning, even now melting completely to get to a SWE of 0cm, but I can't understand a build up at night again to previous values, especially since the last 3 days have been completely clear days (and presumably nights) with no snow. This appears to me to be a temperature artifact – it is getting pretty cold (almost down to -20 C) at night, though the snow pillows are supposed to apply a temperature correction, I thought.
2 Comments
Isabel Suhr
Don't know if this is relevant, but during the last trip one of the snow pillows was completely bare, and the others were at least partially bare.
Middle is the pillow just north of C, completely uncovered. Right is the one NE of C. I can't remember which one the pic on the left is, but most likely the one near D.
Jessica Lundquist
The manufacturers say this much jitter is "typical" for early season patchy snow, especially with the strong diurnal cycle swings. We will watch it after today's decent new snow accumulation.