Identification

Title

Comparisons of snowfall measurements in complex terrain made during the 2010 winter Olympics in Vancouver

Abstract

Solid precipitation (SP) intensity ( Rs ) using four automatic gauges, Pluvio, PARSIVEL (PArticle, SIze and VELocity), FD12P and POSS, and radar reflectivity factor ( Z ) using the POSS and PARSIVEL were measured at a naturally sheltered station (VOA) located at high level (1,640 m) on the Whistler Mountain in British Colombia, Canada. The R s and other standard meteorological parameters were collected from March 2009, and from November 2009, to February 2010. The wind speed (ws) measured during this period ranged from 0 to 4.5 ms⁻¹, with a mean value of 0.5 ms⁻¹. The temperature varied from 4 to −17 °C. The SP amount reported by the PARSIVEL was higher than that reported by the Pluvio by more than a factor of 2, while the FD12P and POSS measured relatively smaller amounts, but much closer to that reported by the Pluvio and manual measurements. The dependence of R s from the PARSIVEL on wind speed was examined, but no significant dependence was found. The PARSIVEL’s precipitation retrieval algorithm was modified and tested using three different snow density size relationships (ρ s–D) reported in literature. It was found that after modification of the algorithm, the derived R s amounts using the raw data agreed reasonably well with the Pluvio. Statistical analysis shows that more than 95% of Zhposs data measured by POSS appears to correlates well with the reflectivity factors determined using the three ρ s–D relationships. The automated Pluvio accumulation and manually determined daily SP amount (SPm) measured during five winter months were compared. The mean ratio (MR) and the mean difference (MD), and the correlation coefficient (r) calculated using the data collected using the two methods, were found to be 0.96, 0.4 and 0.6 respectively, indicating respectable agreement between these two methods, with only the Pluvio underestimating the amount by about 4%.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d72r3skm

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2014-01-01T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact