In building the Snow Scope App, we’ve always been focused on making recording observations easy. While data input is a big piece of a puzzle, the output - making sense of the data - is what we really care about.

To that end, we’re introducing a new module in the app called”SnowViz”. SnowViz is a set of data visualization tools that allow you to find trends in your data across time, space, aspect, and elevation.

At the ISSW 2024 in Tromso, Norway, the following extended abstract was presented in a poster format. As an independent evaluation of the Snow Scope Probe by leading experts from France and Switzerland, it is a great resource to learn a bit more about the technical performance details of the Snow Scope Probe and build confidence in its performance in evaluating snowpack stratigraphy.

Over the last few years we’ve continuously been evolving the Snow Scope Probe - making it more accurate, reliable, durable, and easy to use. This year was no different, and we are excited to announce a completely redesigned collapsible probe section, firmware and calibration improvements, and some other durability improvements.

Today, we’re excited to annouce our solution to this problem, which we’re calling “Voice to Pit”. Instead of having to type in all of the snow profile information, you can talk to your phone and it will automatically process your audio recording into a drawn snow profile! Think of it like having an assistant with a field book in the pit with you - instead of needing a second person to write down the details you are dictating, the Snow Scope App will record those details and turn them into a profile.

Our friends over at Avalanche Savvy got a chance to use a Snow Scope Probe this season while teaching courses, guiding, and recreating in an area that doesn’t see a ton of observations. Being motorized users, they had a unique take on how to blend Snow Scope Probe observations with traditional obs to rapidly understand spatial variability across the large terrain area they cover…

We’ve just put out a major update for the Snow Scope App - with a focus on bringing our web app up to date and improving profile creation and editing flow - check out below for details on all the updates, and our learn page for a ton of videos detailing all of these new features and more.

How Deep of a Snow Profile can you collect with a Snow Scope Probe? We discuss a field day collecting 4m profiles, some of the use cases of profiles this deep, and limitations of deep profiles.

Detecting and tracking weak layers across space and time is one of the best uses of the Snow Scope Probe. In this post, we detail a test that shows the ability of the Snow Scope to repeatably identify weak layers as thin as 1.5mm thick, and discuss the theory that allows the probe to do this!

In developing the Snow Scope Penetrometer, we dug and recorded a ton of manual snowpits to collect comparison data. Recording layer depths, hand hardnesses, grains, temperature, time, and location data in the field is not a quick and easy task, especially in cold and snowy conditions, and we became frustrated that there isn’t a great in field solution to cataloging manual snowpits.

One question we often get is whether the probing velocity affects the profile output. It often comes as a surprise that no, penetration rate does not significantly effect the measurement. This is an absolutely critical requirement…

With little knowledge of the local snowpack, we spent the beginning of the week getting oriented with the terrain and doing a ton of poking around in the snow - digging pits to see layer reactivity, and taking Scope profiles all over the place to quantify how different the snowpack was from place to place.

Before we ship each Scope Probe to customers, we do a final device test on snow to ensure quality. Recently, before shipping out a batch of probes, I took the opportunity to compare data from this test across 5 probes and see if I could generate a 3D view of the snowpack.

Measuring Spatial variability of the snowpack was one of the main drivers of the development of the Scope. While it is a great tool applicable to documenting variability over multiple slopes, aspects, drainages, or elevations, it can also be used…

The Scope is the perfect tool for measuring and documenting spatial variability of the snowpack. By quickly measuring a snow hardness profile and automatically tagging location, many profiles…

One defining feature of the Scope is its objectivity and repeatability. Using the Scope instead of manual hand hardness profiles allows profiles taken at different times to be directly compared…