These data include snow depth and snow water equivalent (SWE) for a field campaign on April 9, 2024. The field area is comprised of 311 surveyed points in, on the perimeter of, and surrounding six forest openings next to Coal Creek off Coal Bank Pass in the San Juan Mountains in southwestern Colorado, USA. These measurements were taken to look at the relationship between snow accumulation and snow melt patterns between forest gaps of various sizes, and forest edges of various sizes (edge of forest gaps). Canopy metrics, including canopy height, total gap area, mean distance to canopy, canopy closure, leaf area index, non-directional edginess, canopy edginess with a southern aspect, and canopy edginess with a northern aspect were defined using aerial lidar data for the San Juan Mountains and can be found in an affiliated data release titled, ‘High Resolution Canopy Structure and Density Metrics for Southwest Colorado Derived from 2019 Aerial Lidar.’ These metrics are also included herein for the 311 surveyed points.

These data include snow depth and snow water equivalence (SWE) for the 2022 and 2023 water years during 16 separate field campaigns. The field area is comprised of 311 surveyed points in, on the perimeter of, and surrounding six forest openings next to Coal Creek off Coal Bank Pass in the San Juan Mountains in Southwest Colorado, USA. These measurements were taken to look at the relationship between snow accumulation and snow melt patterns between forest gaps of various sizes, and forest edges of various sizes (edge of forest gaps). Canopy metrics, including canopy height, total gap area, mean distance to canopy, canopy closure, leaf area index, non-directional edginess, canopy edginess with a southern aspect, and canopy edginess with a northern aspect were defined using aerial lidar data for the San Juan Mountains and can be found in an affiliated data release titled, ‘High Resolution Canopy Structure and Density Metrics for Southwest Colorado Derived from 2019 Aerial Lidar.’ These metrics are also included herein for the 311 surveyed points.

These data include snow depth and snow water equivalence (SWE) for the 2022 and 2023 water years during 16 separate field campaigns. The field area is comprised of 311 surveyed points in, on the perimeter of, and surrounding six forest openings next to Coal Creek off Coal Bank Pass in the San Juan Mountains in Southwest Colorado, USA. These measurements were taken to look at the relationship between snow accumulation and snow melt patterns between forest gaps of various sizes, and forest edges of various sizes (edge of forest gaps). Canopy metrics, including canopy height, total gap area, mean distance to canopy, canopy closure, leaf area index, non-directional edginess, canopy edginess with a southern aspect, and canopy edginess with a northern aspect were defined using aerial lidar data for the San Juan Mountains and can be found in an affiliated data release titled, ‘High Resolution Canopy Structure and Density Metrics for Southwest Colorado Derived from 2019 Aerial Lidar.’ These metrics are also included herein for the 311 surveyed points.

This data release includes snow depth and snow water equivalent (SWE) for the water year 2025 during ten separate field campaigns that took place between late December and late May. The field area is comprised of 703 surveyed points in, on the perimeter of, and surrounding six flat field (‘no_slope’) forest openings, four northern hillslope aspect (‘north_slope’) forest openings and four southern hillslope aspect (‘south_slope’) forest openings next to Coal Creek off Coal Bank Pass in the San Juan Mountains in Southwest Colorado, USA. These measurements were taken to look at the relationship between snow accumulation and snowmelt patterns between forest gaps of various sizes and forest edges of various sizes (edge of forest gaps), and to determine how these relationships may modulate based upon hillslope aspect. Canopy metrics, including canopy height, total gap area, mean distance to canopy, canopy closure, leaf area index, non-directional edginess, canopy edginess with a southern aspect, and canopy edginess with a northern aspect were defined using aerial lidar data for the San Juan Mountains. These canopy metrics can be found in an affiliated data release titled, ‘High Resolution Canopy Structure and Density Metrics for Southwest Colorado Derived from 2019 Aerial Lidar.’ They are also included herein for the 703 surveyed points.

,Detailed hydrometeorological data from the mountain rain-to-snow transition zone are present for water years 2004 through 2014. The Johnston Draw watershed (1.8 km2), ranging from 1497 – 1869 m in elevation, is a sub-watershed of the Reynolds Creek Experimental Watershed (RCEW) in southwestern Idaho. The dataset includes continuous hourly hydrometeorological variables across a 372 m elevation gradient, on north- and south-facing slopes, including air temperature, relative humidity and snow depth from 11 sites in the watershed. Hourly measurements of solar radiation, precipitation, wind speed and direction, and soil moisture and temperature are available at selected stations. The dataset includes hourly stream discharge measured at the watershed outlet. These data provide the scientific community with a unique dataset useful for forcing and validating models in interdisciplinary studies and will allow for better representation and understanding of the complex processes that occur in the rain-to-snow transition zone.,This version of the data set fixes errors in all data files and supersedes the earlier datasets https://doi.org/10.15482/USDA.ADC/1258769 and https://doi.org/10.15482/USDA.ADC/1245163.,See the file inventory included with this dataset for more information on individual data files.,For more information about this dataset contact: Clarissa L. Enslin: enslclar@gmail.com Sarah Godsey: godsey@isu.edu Danny G. Marks: ars.danny@gmail.com,

Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) flights were conducted over the headwaters of the South Fork of Brackett Creek in the Bridger Mountains of SW Montana during the winter of 2020. The flights collected overlapping imagery focused on a steep mountain couloir study site known locally as "the Hourglass." Structure from motion (SfM) photogrammetry was used to process the collected imagery and create digital surface models (DSMs) of the landscape on 13 field days. The data was collected between January 7, 2020 and July 8, 2020 and includes 12 snow-on models as well as 1 snow-free model. The snow-on DSMs represent snow depths calculated using DSM-differencing techniques (subtraction of snow-free surface from snow-on surface). Other files include a shapefile of study locations and csv files of data used in analyses described in the associated manuscript.

Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) flights were conducted over the headwaters of the South Fork of Brackett Creek in the Bridger Mountains of SW Montana during the winter of 2020. The flights collected overlapping imagery focused on a steep mountain couloir study site known locally as "the Hourglass." Structure from motion (SfM) photogrammetry was used to process the collected imagery and create digital surface models (DSMs) of the landscape on 13 field days. The data was collected between January 7, 2020 and July 8, 2020 and includes 12 snow-on models as well as 1 snow-free model. The snow-on DSMs represent snow depths calculated using DSM-differencing techniques (subtraction of snow-free surface from snow-on surface). Other files include a shapefile of study locations and csv files of data used in analyses described in the associated manuscript.

This data set provides digital terrain models, snow depth, and canopy height, acquired by a scanning lidar system and derived from Point Cloud Digital Terrain Models (PCDTMs) from two regions of Alaska, USA collected as part of the NASA SnowEx 2023 field campaign. The study sites include a boreal forest environment in the Fairbanks region of central Alaska (the Bonanza Creek Experimental Forest, Caribou Poker Creek watershed, and Farmer’s Loop/Creamer’s Field) and a coastal tundra environment in the North Slope region of the northern Alaska coastal plain (Arctic coastal plain and Upper Kuparuk Toolik). The raw data from which these data are derived are available as SnowEx23 Airborne Lidar Scans Raw, Version 1.

The data set presents snow pit measurements collected during the NASA SnowEx March 2023 Intensive Observation Period (IOP) in Alaska, USA to use for calibration and validation with coincident airborne SWESARR and lidar measurements as part of the strategy focused on snow water equivalence (SWE) and snow depth (HS). In total, 170 snow pits were excavated between the five sites at locations representing a range of snow depth, vegetation, and topographic conditions. Three study areas represented boreal forest snow near Fairbanks, AK: Farmers Loop Creamers Field (FLCF), Caribou Poker Creek Research Watershed (CPCRW), and Bonanza Creek Experimental Forest (BCEF). Two study areas represented Arctic tundra snow: Arctic Coastal Plain (ACP) and Upper Kuparuk Toolik (UKT).

This data set consists of snow pit data from nine study areas, within three larger-scale areas in northern Colorado (Fraser, North Park, and Rabbit Ears Meso-cell Study Areas (MSAs)). The study areas range from low-relief (flat topography) unforested areas with shallow snow covers, to high-relief (complex topography) densely forested areas with deep snow covers.