The snow profiles measured by the Snow Scope look different from manual hand hardness profiles. That is a good thing.
The Snow Scope is a Digital Snow Penetrometer, and measures the snow in a different way than a hand hardness profile does. While both communicate the same type of measurement, snow hardness vs depth, there are several key differences:
The Snow Scope measures at a much higher resolution than a hand hardness profile - instead of the typical 5-15 layers present in a hand hardness profile, the Snow Scope measures hardness with 1 value per mm of depth. This gives a more accurate representation of the snow hardness than a blocky hand hardness profile.
This high resolution causes many more layers to be picked up in a scope profile than a hand hardness profile. It also allows different grain types to appear differently (small grain powder or rounds will appear smooth, while large grain melt forms or to a lesser extent facets will appear rougher as the Snow Scope picks up individual grains). Our smoothness filter can smooth out some of the grain related roughnesses.
The Snow Scope measures hardness in pressure required to penetrate through snow (output in kPa), on a scale of about 3-550kPa. Hand hardness profiles output about 13 discrete hardness values (F- -> K+) . Through comparison of data from HH profiles to Scope profiles and info from the ICSSG*, we have generated a conversion from kPa to HH equivalent, but it is important to note that human variability in what people consider a “Pen” or “4 finger” hard layer will cause differences between the Snow Scope HH equivalent and a practitioner’s manual HH value.
Snow Scope profiles take a sample in a single location about 8mm wide, while a hand hardness profile is usually a practitioner’s averaging of measurements across a pit wall. This can cause a Scope profile to pick up layers that may be very spatially isolated. We recommend taking multiple Scope profiles in an area for this reason.
*International Classification for Seasonal Snow on the Ground