How Do You Measure Snowfall?

Video Transcript

"Hello today we are talking about measuring snowfall. There are a couple of different ways to do it. One's a little more unscientific then the other. But first of all let me just tell you the basic way to do it is you can take a ruler and after the snow is done, you want to make sure it's done. You just simple stick the ruler through the snow till it hits the surface. Now it's good to do it on a hard surface because that will give you a little more accurate reading. You also want to make sure that you are away from trees that might shade some of the snow or also the house that also could affect the flow of the snow as it falls to the ground. Now for even a more accurate reading though you want to go out into an open area like a yard, again away from homes and trees, anything that can block the snow. And take your ruler and poke it through the snow to the surface until it stops. And then take that measurement write it down. Then take four other readings at different spots in your yard, several yards away from each other and then poke it down, write down that number. Take the four readings, four to five readings and then average them out and that will give you a very good idea of what the snowfall measurement for your location was. A little more accurate way to do that is to use snowboards. And snowboards are simply just a square pieces of wood that are painted white and they are placed throughout a location. Perhaps a parking lot that's not used very much, more commonly though it would be used in a yard. And you leave those snowboards there the entire winter long and every time it snows, as soon as the snow stops, you take your ruler and you punch it down to the top of the snowboard and you take your measurement. Then you average all of the different locations the amounts that you recorded there. Now that's a little bit more accurate because number one you know you are taking the reading at the same spots throughout the yard all winter long where those snowboards are. Cause the snowboards won't move and also you are going to be taking an averaging that snowfall amount which gives you a better idea in case there's any kind of drifting or any kind of affect that would give some locations a little higher depth that could give you a false reading if you just took the one location. So those are a couple of different ways to take snowfall measurements."