Presenting the Snowflake Video Imager (SVI)

Herein the authors introduce the Snowflake Video Imager (SVI), which is a new instrument for characterizing frozen precipitation. An SVI utilizes a video camera with sufficient frame rate, pixels, and shutter speed to record thousands of snowflake images. The camera housing and lighting produce little airflow distortion, so SVI data are quite representative of natural conditions, which is important for volumetric data products such as snowflake size distributions. Long-duration, unattended operation of an SVI is feasible because datalogging software provides data compression and the hardware can operate for months in harsh winter conditions. Details of SVI hardware and field operation are given. Snowflake size distributions (SSDs) from a storm near Boulder, Colorado, are computed. An SVI is an imaging system, so SVI data can be utilized to compute diverse data products for various applications. In this paper, the authors present visualizations of frozen particles (i.e., snowflake aggregates as well as individual crystals), which provide insight into the weather conditions such as temperature, humidity, and winds.

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Copyright 2009 American Meteorological Society (AMS). Permission to use figures, tables, and brief excerpts from this work in scientific and educational works is hereby granted provided that the source is acknowledged. Any use of material in this work that is determined to be "fair use" under Section 107 or that satisfies the conditions specified in Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law (17 USC, as revised by P.L. 94-553) does not require the Society's permission. Republication, systematic reproduction, posting in electronic form on servers, or other uses of this material, except as exempted by the above statements, requires written permission or license from the AMS. Additional details are provided in the AMS Copyright Policies, available from the AMS at 617-227-2425 or amspubs@ametsoc.org. Permission to place a copy of this work on this server has been provided by the AMS. The AMS does not guarantee that the copy provided here is an accurate copy of the published work.
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Author Newman, Andrew
Kucera, Paul
Bliven, Larry
Publisher UCAR/NCAR - Library
Publication Date 2009-02-01T00:00:00
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Topic Category geoscientificInformation
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Metadata Date 2023-08-18T19:05:29.784537
Metadata Record Identifier edu.ucar.opensky::articles:17472
Metadata Language eng; USA
Suggested Citation Newman, Andrew, Kucera, Paul, Bliven, Larry. (2009). Presenting the Snowflake Video Imager (SVI). UCAR/NCAR - Library. http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7vd70rj. Accessed 26 July 2025.

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