Topic: Here's an interesting problem

[ggsteve]

I know we are getting some snow flurries today.  However, the wind is blowing last night's snow out of the pine trees and it is falling just like new snow.  I can't tell the difference and neither can my Cocorahs rain gauge!  How do I measure tomorrow morning?

[miraculon]

Are there any areas that were clean and bare of snow prior to this Pine-Based Snow, yet not being affected by the P.B.S.? (wait, PBS is already taken...  )

If so, you could take a core from that area, melt it and report that as your value.

If there was some way to judge that the true snow (from the sky) was a "Trace", you could report that.

If you can't isolate the stuff from the trees, this is indeed a toughy....

Greg H.

[ggsteve]

As many of you know, I live in the middle of a pine forest.  My rain gauge is as far as I can get it from the pine trees on three sides and the house on the other.  I may have to report "trace" for tomorrow.  No way to know if the "real" snow would add up to 0.01" or more, but we have definitely had flurries today.  In fact they overlapped with the "PBS", so no, no way to tell them apart.  There's about 1/4" of snow in the gauge.

My reporting can't be all bad, my station made the NWS Public Information Statement list for snowfall totals this morning!

[skysummit]

man....glad I don't have that snow problem here in south LA.  Whenever we do get a snow down here, I'll have to come back here to look up instructions on the proper way to measure it

[miraculon]

I see that you  reported the T today. I think that this was a safe bet, since others nearby were also a trace.

2015-02-20   06:30 AM   MA-MD-47   West Townsend 0.5 W   T   T   NA   NA

Greg H.

[ggsteve]

I see that you  reported the T today. I think that this was a safe bet, since others nearby were also a trace.

2015-02-20   06:30 AM   MA-MD-47   West Townsend 0.5 W   T   T   NA   NA

Greg H.

I also wrote a description of what occurred in the comment section when I submitted my data.