Snow catch by Contier Crowns

Abstract

Study of interception storage of snow by two species of sapling conifers in northern Idaho revealed that cumulative snow catch follows the classical law of autocatakinetic growth, or where I s , is interception storage, S is the interception storage capacity of the tree, e is the base of the natural logarithm, k is a constant expressing the rate of interception storage, P is accumulated snowfall, and P 0 is accumulated snowfall at the time of most rapid storage (i.e., the point of inflection of the sigmoid curve). Interception storage conformed to the law in five storms in which snowfall began while the trees were bare, and in two storms in which snow fell while snow from previous storms persisted on the trees. Several small storms yielded insufficient data to define the appropriate constants, but inspection indicated no serious deviation from the general law.