Estimation of ground snow weight based on daily precipitation and daily mean air temperature

This paper presents a simple method for estimating ground snow weight based on standard data taken by meteorological observatories. The ground snow weight (kgf/m 2 ) on the nth day is considered to be the accumulation of daily precipitation p i (mm) from the first day ( i =1) of a period of continuous snow cover to the (n-1)th day. In this method, daily precipitation p i (mm) should be adopted when the daily mean air temperature is less than an air temperature limit. The decreasing quantity of snow weight due to snowmelt is neglected for simplicity. In order to verify this method, we used daily precipitation, daily mean air temperature and ground snow weight observed continuously for many years at eight observation sites in heavy snow regions of Japan. Comparison of our estimated values with the observed values of ground snow weight at each site shows that our estimated values trace observed weights fairly well as long as the daily mean air temperature is below +2°C. It is concluded that the proposed method is practical and useful to estimate ground snow weight in heavy snow regions.