Canadian Historical Snow Water Equivalent dataset (CanSWE)

Overview

The Canadian historical Snow Water Equivalent dataset (CanSWE) includes manual and automated pan-Canadian observations of Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) collected by national, provincial and territorial agencies as well as hydropower companies and their partners. Snow depth and derived bulk snow density are also included when available. This dataset supersedes the most recent update of the Canadian Historical Snow Survey (CHSSD) dataset published by Brown et al. (2019). The creation of CanSWE used the 2019 CHSSD update as a starting point and involved three main steps: (i) correction and cleaning of the 2019 CHSSD update (correction of metadata, removal of duplicates), (ii) update of this cleaned dataset until July 2020 and addition of snow data from new stations and agencies, and (iii) consistent quality control of the final dataset. CanSWE is described in detail in Vionnet et al. (2021, submitted).

Provider's contact information

Vincent Vionnet (Environment and Climate Change Canada)

Colleen Mortimer (Environment and Climate Change Canada)

Licensing

Licence: Open Government License - Canada.

Licence: Hydro-Québec’s data are available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution – non Commercial – Share A Like 4.0 International Licence.

Dataset citable as: Vionnet, Vincent, Mortimer, Colleen, Brady, Mike, Arnal, Louise, & Brown, Ross. (2021). Canadian historical Snow Water Equivalent dataset (CanSWE, 1928-2020) (Version v1) [Data set]. Zenodo. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4734372.

Variable name and units:

Snow water equivalent, snw [kg m-2]; snow depth, snd [m], derived snowpack bulk density, den [kg m-3].
Station information: latitude, longitude, elevation, data provider, measurement type/method.
Agency and CanSWE data quality flags specified independently.

Spatial coverage and resolution:

Canada, point data.

Temporal coverage and resolution:

1928 -2020, variable frequency.

Information about observations (number, homogeneity)

The final dataset includes over one million SWE measurements from 2607 different locations across Canada over the snow seasons 1928 – 2020 where a snow season is defined as starting August 01 and ending July 31.

Information about the technical and scientific quality

This dataset represents a single collection spanning a broad time period with improved quality control and consistency. [Obtaining data separately through many of the agencies must be done by direct request (email) so obtaining up-to-date information even for small regions is a challenge. Also, when merging regional data with the national database we often identify metadata issues that need correcting and correspond directly with the contributing agency. These corrections may or may not make their way into the provincial/territorial system.]

Limitations and strengths for application in North Canada

For the period available this dataset likely represent the majority of data available, nonetheless coverage of Northern Canada is less dense than other locations. An important exception is that data from the Quebec Ministry of Env. And Climate Change is not currently permitted to be shared/included in the combined product.
Dataset not restricted to Northern Canada (requires that one select pertinent data from amongst all included)
Tentative plans to update annually. However this is resource-dependent.

References to documents describing the methodology or/and the dataset

Vionnet, V., C. Mortimer, M. Brady, L. Arnal, and R. Brown, 2021: Canadian historical Snow Water Equivalent dataset (CanSWE, 1928-2020), submitted to Earth System Science Data, May 2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2021-160.

Link to download the data and format of data:

https://zenodo.org/record/4734372 (netCDF).