Road Weather Management Program
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Best Practices for Road Weather Management Version 2.0

Title:

Evaluation of the Hotplate Snow Gauge

Abstract:

As part of an FAA research effort, a new snow gauge was developed that was designed to be sensitive to typical snowfall rates, respond quickly, update each minute, and have very low maintenance characteristics. The new snow gauge was coined the "Hotplate" snowgauge because it measures the amount of heat necessary to melt and evaporate the snow that falls on its surface. The heat required to keep the sensor at a constant temperature is proportional to the liquid equivalent snowfall rate. This new sensor was successfully tested for several years as part of the FAA Aviation Weather Research Program and was recently commercialized. The Aurora Program undertook this research project to test the overall accuracy of the Hotplate snow gauge and its utility for supporting snow and ice control operations. This project confirms the FAA project findings that the Hotplate snow gauge performs well and meets or exceeds the NWS performance criteria for snow gauges.

Source(s):

Prepared by National Center for Atmospheric Research for the Aurora Consortium

https://intrans.iastate.edu/app/uploads/2019/05/HotplateFinalReport.pdf

Date: 2005

Author:

NCAR

Keywords:


Environmental Sensor Station (ESS)

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