Weather Station Hardware > Other Weather Station Hardware

Snow depth gauge

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llaves:
Are there any consumer-priced remote reading snow depth gauges? I'm not concerned about water equivalent, so I don't need anything with a snow pillow, just depth of snow. I've built depth sensors using ultrasonic and laser rangefinders. The ultrasonic was worthless, the laser rangefinder is OK, but has some inexplicable temperature dependency.

DaleReid:
Consumer priced is the key.  Over 7 years ago there was an item listed (ultrasonic, I think) from Ambient (I think) that was perpetually out of stock and never came back.  Under $100.  From those of us up here in snow country it would have been very popular so I can only assume it was an engineering failure or had high failure rate.

I had the stuff to proceed with a laser but needed skills at making a  heated box to keep it working well and another hobbyist was interested in the stuff so I sold it to him.  Never heard how well it worked in his deployment.

I have a Campbell Scientific (used, to make it 'affordable) SR50A which is darned close to perfect for my implementation.  It will track the settling of the snow and has been within a centimeter when I've measured the depth physically under the unit's scan area.  I had to run it through a CS datalogger (already up and running with other sensors) but was very easy to use their interface and software to gather the data stream.

I haven't seen on on eBay (are there other sources for good weather stuff at used prices?) for awhile. It does work and is on the border if 'affordable' which depends upon the user and having things like a datalogger already up and running.

I have been holding my breath for the very kind of sensor  you are desiring and nothing has come forth.  Heck, we as serious users can't even get Davis to design and market a new display with interfaces to allow gathering of the data their stations receive, so I am not hopeful that we'll ever see a reliable, affordable snow depth device.

Cutty Sark Sailor:
Throughout history, I think, folks try to achieve this:

Currently: https://www.weather.gov/grr/snowsensor

But seems like we still remain stuck in the confines outlined here:
https://climate.colostate.edu/pdfs/snowbook.pdf

Snow wins.

ValentineWeather:
That DFIR double snow fence is also the most accurate way to catch snow for snow melt if you have a large enough area.
I measure snow for the NWS. Snow is always a challenge, especially blizzards, so have incorporated some of the shielding with the snow fence myself.

thomas:
I remember sometime back there was an inquiry (i think it was here) by Ecowitt asking about interest in a snow sensor.

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