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Calling all weather geeks
 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead

Can anyone tell me if theres any kind of set figures for the amount of degrees the temperature drops by in relation to the height above sea level you are.

For instance if i was looking at the forecast for say Chambery and it said 9 degrees celcius what would the temp be at 1000,2000 and 3000 metres be? I guess i'd need to know what height Chambery was also-does anyone know the easiest place to find towns/cities heights. I know that some of this is probably gonna be not very accurate as i know the cities like Chambery,Grenoble,Geneva and say Turin are still a fir way from the mountains i'm interested in-its just that it would be nice for me to able to look at those places and forecasts and be able to deduce that if its forecast 9 c in Chambery at x above sea level that it would probably snowing in say Tignes at whatever the height the snow/freezing level is.

That leads me onto another question-is there an optimum temperature for snow,is the colder the temp the better the snow and at what temp does snow turn to sleet and rain-well thats 3 questions actually wink -so can any of you lovely snow/weatherhead geeks get your teeth into this and decipher what the hell i'm talking about? snowHead
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 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person

Here is one in old money.
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/air-altitude-temperature-d_461.html

Or 1 degree Celsius per 100 m but can vary with humidity, this was in the BASI 3 exam last year!
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Atomic_Mick wrote:
Can anyone tell me if theres any kind of set figures for the amount of degrees the temperature drops by in relation to the height above sea level you are.


Yes, the "standard atmosphere" defines a "lapse rate" of approximately 6.5 degrees C per 1,000 metres - i.e. the temperature drops by 6.5C for every 1,000 metres that you go up (until you reach around 11,000 metres - but skiers don't have to worry about that).

Atomic_Mick wrote:
it would be nice for me to able to look at those places and forecasts and be able to deduce that if its forecast 9 c in Chambery at x above sea level that it would probably snowing in say Tignes at whatever the height the snow/freezing level is.


Puzzled Wouldn't it be easier just to look at a weather forecast for Tignes? We even plot the snow line on a graph for you... Cool


Generally, the boundary between Snow and Sleet / Rain can be anywhere around 0C to 3C - and even outside that range depending on air temperatures, wind speed, ground temperature, etc... but the lightest, fluffiest snow falls when it's below zero and there's no wind... Sometimes. snowHead
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Thanks jbob and J2Dave, for the bit of info-yes i guess it would be easiest to just look at resort forecasts which i do look at also but i guess i just like to reafirm those by looking at the city ones too in the area.

The 7 day forecast that you've linked in there J2Dave, is one i haven't seen before so thanks also for that-though i notice that the skiclubs predicted snowfall is 33cm over the next 6 days wheras your site is forecasting 66cm which is a fair bit of difference and the freezing/snow levels look different too-i know forecasting amounts of snow/rain is probably quite difficult i just wonder how the big variations in predictions come about.
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 Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

converting MM rain into MM snow must be fraught with difficulties, one winter I had a measuring pole outside the window and checking against the French, Meteo forecast revealed a high accuracy but they always state a range ie 20-30 cm, over a few days the total seemed to work out as the lower figures added up.
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Atomic_Mick wrote:
your site is forecasting 66cm which is a fair bit of difference


Yes... that was from yesterday's GFS run - I think we're about to downgrade that somewhat from the data coming through now... it'll still snow some though... snowHead

Atomic_Mick wrote:
i just wonder how the big variations in predictions come about.


Forecasts would be fine if it wasn't for the damn weather. Cool

Predicting depths of fresh snow is horrible - down to the variable (and constantly varying) density; the ratio by volume of the water in the snow. Really light fresh snow can have a density as low as 5% (so 1mm of rain / precipitation would give 20mm of snow), but heavier snow (light breeze, slightly warmer air) can reach 15% or even 25% (1mm rain = 4mm snow) density.

A small rise in temperature and a change in wind can easily take falling snow through a huge range of densities in the space of a few hours.

And as soon as the snow falls, it begins to settle and compact under its own weight - quite quickly heading for densities of 30-50%.

We take a best guess at the average of the relevant factors that might apply for the duration of the fall and apply that to the forecast precipitation.

Conceivably we might forecast 20cm of fresh for a day. In the morning it's cold and fluffy and you might go out and measure 30cm of powder; by lunchtime it's heavier and compacting and you might measure 20cm. By first thing next morning it could quite easily have compacted to 10cm.

Forecasts would be fine if it wasn't for the damn mountains. Cool

And then there are the mountains; which funnel the wind and swirl it round, radiate and absorb heat in wildly different ways depending on their aspect and all the other factors...


So, depending on where and when you measure it, you might think the exact same snow forecast is bang-on or absolute pants.


And that's why we'll never charge you for our Snow "Best Guesses"... snowHead
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