Automatic Snow Depth Measurement System, ASDMS

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1. Automatic Snow Depth Measurement System

To measure snow depth in past days, people used a wooden plate with a perpendicularly-positioned measuring stick to manually check the snow depth through their eyes. Recently, Kweather and Kaijo Corporation from Japan developed ultrasonic snow depth measurement sensor. The sensor acquires the snow depth by calculating a travelling distance of ultrasonic wave reflected on a snow surface after being transmitted. Kweather consequently proposed a new snow depth measurement system called Automatic Snow Depth Measurement System (ASDMS) to KMA (Korea Meteorological Association) and 5 of these systems were installed around urban areas in 2006. The installation of these systems began a new era in snow observation.

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2. ASDMS Composition

 
 
3. Expectation Effect

Sudden climate changes such as a snowstorm cause unexpected damages domestically and globally. Early admonition of the natural disasters is essential to prevent further extreme damages. KMA has enhanced the forecasting technology through real-time observation data from more than 500 AWS nationwide to minimize casualties; however, there exist only 17 AWS that can observe snow depth and manual observation of snow is reported hourly. Due to lack of available systems for snow depth measurement, snowfall damages have been increasing.

In order to minimize damages from snowfall, it is necessary to improve and upgrade ASDMS. Currently, observation by snow measuring plate has limitation of observation site and restriction of accuracy according to observation period. Also, Video Automatic Snowfall Observation system came into domestic market leads to low utilization due to low trust, restriction of high speed of communication. Thus, Kweather`s ASDMS is designed to be very compatible with KMA network and it will provide high accuracy and real-time snow depth data for timely snowfall advisories.