Journal of the Japanese Society of Snow and Ice

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Wind tunnel experiments were performed to investigate the density of snow drifts that formed on the windward side of a simple, tabular obstruction. Artificially produced new snow, lightly compacted snow, and compacted snow were used in the experiments. Field observations of drift density were also conducted. The results indicate that the mean density of the entire snow layer is dependent on the position within the snow drift; typically, density decreases monotonically leeward (toward the obstruction) across the snow drift, while in other cases density increases leeward around the most windward part of the drift before decreasing further leeward. These two density distributions were found for the surface of the snow drifts in the field. The experiments using new snow and lightly compacted snow show positive correlation between the mean density near the drift top and the set wind speed. For the new snow case, a specific relationship exists between mean snow density and local wind speed, but not in case of the lightly compacted snow. The decrease in mean snow density leeward is partly attributed to the range of deposited snow particle sizes in the windward part of snow drift, which is caused by the convergence (deposition) of moderately sized particles in this area. Furthermore, in the experiment using new snow, many snow crystals are deposited parallel to the snow surface on the windward side of the snow drift, whilst many lie at a large angle to the surface on the leeward side. This also leads to the decrease in mean snow density leeward.

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