The Saskatchewan In-Situ Automated Solid Precipitation Measurement Intercomparison Dataset

Two precipitation measurement super-sites were established in Saskatchewan in anticipation of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) intercomparison initiatives for automated in-situ measurement of solid precipitation and snow (2013-2015) and to provide infrastructure support for exploring national solid precipitation measurement issues. The Bratt’s Lake site is in the central Canadian prairies approximately 30 km south of Regina. The Caribou Creek site is located in the southern Boreal forest approximately 100 km Northeast of Prince Albert. Both sites contributed to the WMO Solid Precipitation Inter-Comparison Experiment (SPICE). The objectives of these intercomparison sites are to characterize and provide guidance on the behaviour and performance of automated systems for the in-situ measurement of solid precipitation. Each of the sites provides a different perspective for measuring precipitation. Caribou Creek is characterized by a relatively longer and colder winter season but experiences lower wind speeds during precipitation due to less exposure. The Bratt’s Lake site is drier with a shorter snow accumulation season but experiences relatively high wind speeds due to high exposure, making accurate measurement of solid precipitation more problematic.

The data presented here generally spans between the beginning of October and the end of April starting in the fall of 2013 (the first season of WMO-SPICE). The focus is on hourly accumulations of precipitation measured using various configurations of automated instruments and wind shields, including a WMO Double Fence Automated Reference (DFAR) measurement. Also included are matching ancillary data (wind speed and temperature) corresponding to the same measurement periods as precipitation. A more detailed description of the site measurements is included in the documentation residing in the repository. A subset of this data (2013-2017 cold seasons) was previously published in the ECCC catalogue at a 30-min temporal resolution and can be found at https://doi.org/10.18164/63773b5b-5529-4b1e-9150-10acb84d59f0 with a further description via Smith et al. (2019; https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-11-1337-2019). Unlike the previous published dataset, this publication will consist of a larger number of instrument configurations and is intended to be updated annually.