The stake is on a platform. The measurement is accurate.
The stake is in a hole Win. The board needs to be level with or above the snow surface or else your measurements will be skewed high, sometimes by quite a bit especially as the actual ruler is on the back wall of the hole.snow will creep up the edges of the hole first and then fill in the middle. At least put the measuring device in the middle of the board or something.
Go dig a small hole anywhere on the mountain and you'll see that fill in with snow faster than the actual snow depth rises.
Look at the snow cams out west most are elevated above the snow surface not 3 feet down in it.
Last edited by Sugarbushskier9; 12-10-2016 at 01:38 PM.
I just watched the time lapse from "yesterday". The area directly in front of the ruler actually seemed to fill in slower than anywhere else. There was an area closer to the camera that seemed to rise several inches while the snow along the ruler barely moved at all during that same time... Based on what I've seen on all the time-lapse views that I've watched over the past few weeks, so far I'm quite happy with the snow take this year. Last year there were major drifting issues at times. This year I haven't seen that happen at all yet.
The stake is great to have and they may not be able to raise it if the cam is fixed in place and can't be adjusted. But to get a truly accurate measurement the board can't sit in a hole. Best practice would also be to have the stake be round, not flat, so the snow doesn't climb up the flat surface but that's a quibble. These are all first world problems.
I was having a discussion with another gentleman on the chairlift today and he brought up why Mount Ellen isn't open. I thought it was something to do with State Forest but he didn't think so. Does anyone know?
Cost efficiency vs demand... Doesn't make sense to run both mountains early season or late season. LP was made the "primary" mountain a number of years ago and ME always has a later start and earlier close as a result. The Mount Ellen 7 pass is valid at LP before ME opens (but is not valid at LP late season after ME closes). The Mount Ellen 7 Plus pass is valid at LP both before ME opens and after ME closes (plus 5 other random days of your choice).
Yeah yesterday it drifted bad enough that the snow decreased on one part of the board and increased on the other. Howie is right that you can't measure accurately in a hole. Look up any guidelines on measuring snow and that's number 1. The air is rarely still up at that elevation so it's very easy to get snow transport. It doesn't look like it's drifting but snow is filling that hole up faster than it is accumulating around it, that's just how it works.
From NOAA: "If you are not going to measure the Snow Water Equivalent of Snowfall, after you have finished making the Snowfall measurement clear the snow off of the snowboard. After completely clearing snow and ice from the board, reposition it on the surface of the existing snow and mark it with a flag or other marker so you can find it at your next observation time. Never leave a snow measurement board in a depression in the snow as it will then tend to drift over and provide inaccurate data."
It's not a weather station just be glad they have a stake and a camera at the summit. Pretty cool I think. Before they stuck a ruler in the snow and called it in for the snow report. We all know it's more marketing than science. I use this camera and base area one to more see if it is snowing at night.
Yeah it's an awesome live cam and I do the same thing as you haha...is it snowing or is it not? Let's check the cam. But it is hard to use it to judge actual snowfall as that's what it's purpose is.It is very impressive to have a streaming cam on the ridgeline definitely.
When the Groomer team hits spring fling in the next several days, hopefully they can give a little love to the bottom of moonshine, the waterbars are pretty tough.
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