A Meteorological and Snow observational data set from Snoqualmie Pass (921 m), Washington Cascades, U.S.

Abstract

We introduce a quality controlled observational atmospheric, snow, and soil data set from Snoqualmie Pass, Washington, U.S.A., to enable testing of hydrometeorological and snow process representations within a rain-snow transitional climate where existing observations are sparse and limited. Continuous meteorological forcing (including air temperature, total precipitation, wind speed, specific humidity, air pressure, short- and longwave irradiance) are provided at hourly intervals for a 24-year historical period (water years 1989-2012) and at half-hourly intervals for a more-recent period (water years 2013-2015), separated based on the availability of observations. Additional observations include 40-years of snow board new snow accumulation, multiple measurements of total snow depth, and manual snow pits, while more recent years include sub-daily surface temperature, snowpack drainage, soil moisture and temperature profiles, and eddy co-variance derived turbulent heat flux. This data set is ideal for testing hypotheses about energy balance, soil and snow processes in the rain-snow transition zone. Plots of live data can be found here: http://depts.washington.edu/mtnhydr/cgi/plot.cgi

The archive consists of three compressed files:

1) SNQ_Data.tar.gz - Meteorological, soil, and snow data

2) SNQ_TimelapsePhotos_2013_2015.tar.gz - Time lapse photos

3) SNQ_raw_20Hz_2013_2015.tar.gz - Raw eddy co-variance measurements

All files can be uncompressed using the following command: tar -xpzvf [file]