Abstract. The accuracy and precision of snow depth measurements
depend on the measuring device and the conditions of the site and snowpack
in which it is being used. This study compares collocated snow depth
measurements from a magnaprobe snow depth probe and a Federal snow tube in
an ephemeral snow environment. We conducted three snow depth sampling
campaigns from December 2020 to February 2021 that included 39 open-field and
coniferous-, mixed-, and deciduous-forest sampling sites in Durham, New
Hampshire, United States. For all sampling campaigns and land cover types,
with a total of 936 paired observations, the magnaprobe snow depth
measurements were consistently deeper than those of the snow tube. There was a 12 %
average difference between the magnaprobe (14.9 cm) and snow tube (13.2 cm)
average snow depths with a greater difference in the forest (1.9 cm) than
the field (1.3 cm). This study suggests that snow depth measurements using a
Federal snow tube can avoid overprobing with an ephemeral snowpack in
forested environments.
