Measuring Snow

I did a little post-Christmas shopping on Friday to pick up some things that I've badly needed.  The big acquisition was a camera...now I can stop taking crappy pictures with my iPhone, use a real zoom feature, and even take pictures at night.  I know how to press the shutter, adjust the zoom, and turn on the flash.  As far as I'm concerned, that's all I need to do.  The photos from this post are the first ones from the camera to make it onto the blog.  I also picked up a little threshold rug so that I can trample in and out of the back door without tracking snow all over the place, and I picked up a cheap white foam board so that I can measure the snowfall regularly.

A path to the snowboard.

The stick marks the spot.

I have a spot marked in the backyard where I keep the snowboard.  It's in the middle of the yard to avoid drifting near the house and under-accumulation near the trees.  I've shoveled myself a little path to get out to it, and it's marked by a stick that's now just barely sticking out over top of the snow that's been piling up.

Take a few menasurements.

When I measure the snow, I take a few measurements on the board and average them.  Even within the space of a few inches, the snow depth can vary by up to half an inch.  After I'm satisfied that I have a representative measurement, I reach down and pull up the board.  I clear it off, smooth out the snow where the board sits, and plop it back down, ready to receive more snow.  Now that the snow has piled up over a few days, I'm also measuring the total depth of the snow on the grass - not just the new snowfall.  For the record, we had 6.3" of new snow on Wednesday, an even 4.0" Friday into yesterday, and another 2.7" of lake effect on top of that last night into today.  We're in a weather pattern where we're looking at the potential for some light accumulations due to lake effect (likely less than an inch) through mid-week.

Pick up the snowboard and smooth out the snow.

Plop the snowboard back down, and it's ready for new snow.