Dataset from "How does a warm and low-snow winter impact the snow cover dynamics in a humid and discontinuous boreal forest? Insights from observations and modeling in eastern Canada"

The dataset presented below is described in the publication “How does a warm and low-snow winter impact the snow cover dynamics in a humid and discontinuous boreal forest? An observational study in eastern Canada.” from Bouchard et al. (submitted) in the journal Hydrology and Earth System Science.

The original dataset includes monitoring data collected at Montmorency Forest (47.29°N, 71.17°W) from 15 October 2020 to 15 June 2021 (W20-21) and from 15 October 2021 to 15 June 2021 (W21-22) in a medium-size gap, the small-size gap and under the canopy. The study site is a balsam fir – whit birch stand on a 12° slope of north-east aspect. In the monitoring dataset you can find at the hourly timestep:

• Snow depth (cm)
• Soil temperature at 20 cm, 10 cm and 5 cm below ground surface (°C)
• Soil-snow interface temperature (°C)
• Snow temperature every 15 cm from the ground surface (°C)
• Snow surface temperature (°C)
• Air temperature (°C)
• Relative humidity (%)
• Soil volumetric water content at 15 cm below the ground surface (0 – 1)

The dataset also includes snow pit observations taken at Montmorency Forest during W20-21 and during W21-22. Each winter, four (4) snow pits were dug inside medium-size gaps, small-size gaps and at subcanopy locations. Snow pit measurement dates are presented in Bouchard et al. (submitted). Each snow pit includes the vertical profile of:

• Snow stratigraphy
• Snow temperature
• Snow density
• Snow specific surface area (SSA)

The snow pit height corresponds to the upper boundary of the topmost snow layer in the stratigraphy profile. For density measurements, the height value corresponds to the center of the 3-cm thick box cutter. For the SSA, the value is measured optically at the top of the sample. This value is representative of the top 1 cm of the snow sample, as this is the typical e-folding depth of 1310 nm radiation in snow. Grain type codes for the snowpack stratigraphy correspond to the International Classification for Seasonal Snow (Fierz et al., 2009):

• PP: precipitation particles 
• DF: decomposed and fragmented precipitation particles
• RG: rounded grains
• FC: faceted crystals
• FCxr: rounding faceted particles
• DH: depth hoar
• MFpc: melt forms – rounded polycrystals
• MF: melt forms – clustered rounded grains
• MFcr: melt forms – melt-freeze crusts
• IF: ice formations