Contact your county coordinator, your region coordinator or your state coordinator for their guidelines.
My abbreviated procedures:
Measure the accumulation/depth of new snow using a ruler to the nearest tenth of an inch.
Measure the water content of the new snow using the outer cylinder of the rain gauge (procedure below).
Measure the total accumulation of new snow and old snow.
If you have significant accumulation on the ground, take a core sample and measure the water equivalent of the core.
For the water content:
Remove the inner tube and funnel when snow is anticipated.
If snow has accumulated at the top rim of the gauge, use a paddle or flyswatter to pat the snow. The snow that falls inside, you measure. The snow that falls outside is discarded.
Take the large cylinder of the gauge inside to a sink.
Put a measured amount of warm water in the small inner cylinder. Record this amount.
Pour this warm water into the outer cylinder to melt the snow.
Using the funnel, pour the combined water content back into the empty inner cylinder for measuring the water content of the snow. Measure this water as you normally measure rain. Measure to one hundredth of an inch as with rain.
Then subtract the amount of warm water that you added from the total amount of water that was in the otter cylinder.
This amount then is the water content of the snow.
