Central Chile depends heavily upon snow and glacier melt for its downstream water needs, both for agriculture and for municipal use. However, the network of meteorological stations with the capacity to evaluate snow-specific metrics (snow depth, density, and solar radiation, among others) is sparse relative to the importance of snow accumulation on the annual water budget.
With the goal of better understanding snow characteristics within the Metropolitan Region of Santiago, the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Chile has installed an automated snow weather station at Valle Nevado, one of Santiago's local ski resorts. The station is funded by the Chilean government (Fondecyt Nº 1121184), but that doesn't cover maintenance--it's still necessary to pay the site a visit biannually to download data and make sure everything's still in order.
With a class on Snow Hydrology from UChile, I visited the site in early May, prior to the first snow accumulation. May we get plenty in the next couple of months!
