The Snow Scope Probe
A Digital Snow Penetrometer For Modern Snow Professionals
What is The Snow Scope?
The Snow Scope is a digital snow penetrometer. It consists of an electronics sensor "bullet" that attaches to a collapsible probe. The entire Snow Scope package is about the size of a standard avalanche probe.
When probed into the snow, the Snow Scope uses a combination of sensors to measure hardness and depth of the various layers of the snowpack, creating a hardness profile in seconds. This “Scope profile” is similar to a hand hardness profile (comparison below), but with much higher resolution, accuracy, and repeatability. With the Snow Scope, you can collect orders of magnitude more data than via traditional hand hardness profiles and be confident that the data is objective.
How it Works
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1. Probe the Snow Scope into the Snowpack
The Snow Scope’s sensors collect data over the length of your probe (1-5 seconds), sampling at over 5000Hz. Immediately after, this data is processed into a snow profile.
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2. View in Real Time
After processing, the profile is automatically wirelessly transferred to your phone. From probing to a profile appearing on your phone takes about 10 seconds.
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3. Analyze in the Field
View, analyze, annotate, and edit profiles directly on your phone while in the field. This includes adding test results from a snowpit, tagging important layers, viewing at different smoothness levels, and adding aspect, location name, or other notes.
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4. Share and edit across your organization
Data is automatically synced across devices, and can be edited, shared, analyzed, or exported from the comfort of your computer.
Why Snow Scope?
Rapidly Assess Spatial Variability
Collect Profiles on a variety of aspects, elevations, and slopes quickly and efficiently, without having to dig a pit
Tag layers to assess spatial distribution, and track problem layers throughout the season
Filter profiles based on elevation, aspect, time, and location to get a better understanding of snowpack variability
Collect Objective Data
Reduce snow profile variability due to human differences in what "4f" feels like or opinions about which layers are important to record
Identify critical layers that a manual profile may miss due to them being too thin, or a snowpack being too complex
Be confident in comparing profiles created by different users at different times
View data on a continuum of detail levels, from high resolution showing snowpack microstructure, to a more traditional simplified view
Accelerate Your Snowpits
Reduce time per snowpit by replacing tedious manual hand hardness profiles with rapid Scope profiles
Add test results, grain info, and other notes to a profile either in the field on your phone, or back inside on your computer
Automatically tag time and location and sync across your organization's mobile and web devices
Export your data for analysis or storage on your organization's platform
Compared To Traditional Methods…
| Time to Create Profile | Minimum Layer Thickness Detectable | Data Points Per Meter of Depth | Human Error | Automatic recording and sharing. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Snow Scope Probe
|
10 seconds | 3mm | 1000 | minimal | Yes |
| Hand Hardness Profile | 10 minutes | 10mm | maximum 40 | Yes | No |
| RAM Penetrometer | 20 minutes | 15mm | maximum 25 | variable | No |
