Snow Fork is explicitly
designed for field use; it is light, quick and easy to use. It is
designed to operate in extreme conditions, ranging from rainy weather to
as low as 40 °C below zero.
The sensor is a steel fork used as a microwave resonator. Snow Fork
measures the electrical parameters: resonant frequency, attenuation and
3-dB bandwidth.
The measuring results are used to calculate accurately the complex
dielectric constant of snow. Further, the liquid water content and
density of snow are calculated using semi-empirical equations.
All data will be shown immediately on the display and can be stored in a solid-state memory.
The measurements in chart "SNOW LK1601" have been taken side by side as in picture "Repeated measures with Snow Fork". On the horizontal axel, Depth=10cm, is closest to the ground. The snow has been compressed by the new snow layers on top, so the snow's density, on vertical axel, on bottom is higher than on the upper layers on top, Depth=40cm.
Most tools compress snow. With Snow Fork, the snow can be measured inch by inch. Snow compresses naturally by wind, changing temperatures, sun, by snowing etc. There are lots of layers in snow which will be ruined if you have to take samples. With Snow Fork you don't need samples and you can remeasure same layers if necessary. The measurements are easy to upload to a spreadsheet (f.e. MS excel), where you can create your own diagrams and charts.
Technical specifications:
