Through 2016, all Snowstake measurements were made from a single Snowstake located between the Aquariums and the Pump House. A measurement was made once a day. Due to the location near the decking, snow may have been shoveled onto the Snowstake. A had rail on the deck was used to determine New Snow for the day at the same time.
In 2016 five new Snowstakes were installed in the backyard above TerraLab. These five Snowstakes are measured daily and averaged. The Average depth of the five stakes is now used for the Snow Stake "Accumulation" and the difference between the day before and the day of average is recorded as the New Snow. On January 2017, this new method replaced the previous method as it is much more repetitive representative of snow across multiple aspects.
The snowstake line includes a north facing slope, a south facing slope, and a gulley bottom. The average of multiple snowstake across a field is closer to the standard used for snow accumulation measurement at South Pole Station and Summit Station in Greenland. There is one year of overlap between the informal data from the boardwalk stake location and the backyard measurement field. An analysis on how the two sites compare has not been done.
Files contain a two line header, the first containing the month and year, followed by the column names, followed by the tab-delimited data. The columns are as follows:
- Date
- New Snow (cm)
- Snow Stake (cm)
- Sea Ice (WMO)
- Comments
