Time-lapse imagery from eastern Washington, U.S.

Abstract

We present a time-lapse camera dataset for snow monitoring from eastern Washington, U.S.A. Eight time-lapse cameras facing a red pole 3-5 m away from the camera were installed between December 2020 and May 2021. Cameras were set to take an image every day at 12 PM PT. The sites spread an elevational gradient and contain both in- and out-of canopy locations. The dataset is organized with one folder of .jpeg images for each camera, along with a .xlsx file for site metadata, including latitude, longitude, percent of canopy cover, elevation (m), aspect, slope, and terrain type. Snow can be converted into snow depth by finding the length of the pole in pixels in each image and converting to centimeters using a conversion from the total length of the pole in cm/pixels. The cameras coincide with a wolf home range, making this data set ideal for testing hypotheses about how snow processes may be affecting predator-prey interactions, wildlife movement, and general trends for snow in an area where observations are sparse and limited.