Automatic weather station data from Weisssee snow research site (2014-2018)

Meteorological and snow measurements of the automatic weather station (AWS) at Weisssee snow research site are presented for the period 1 October 2014 to 30 September 2018. The entire set comprises of 21 data series including precipitation, air temperature, relative humidity, incoming and outgoing short- and longwave radiation, wind speed and direction, snow depth, snow density and snow temperature in 15 minutes temporal resolution. On 6 October 2014, a Snow-Pack-Analyzer (SPA, Sommer Messtechnik) which measures different dielectric constants of ice, water, and air along flat ribbon sensors [Stähli et al., 2004, doi:10.3189/172756404781814933] was installed for continuous measurements of snow density including a diagonal sensor for measuring bulk snow density and three horizontally mounted sensors at 10, 30, and 50 cm above ground. A mean station SWE series can be calculated using both HS sensors and the SPA density values. Unrealistic density measurements are likely if SPA sensors are not (entirely) snow covered. Additionally, a series of 29 manual snow pit bulk density measurements can be used to check SPA density values. Comparing the daily mean values of the raw SPA bulk density values with the manual measurements results in a mean absolute error of 66 kg/m³ (R²=0.18). In the first winter 2014/2015 and especially in June the SPA sensor was strongly influenced by air pockets around the diagonal sensor which is why the entire SPA setup was turned by about 90° to be positioned parallel to the dominant wind direction [Schattan et al., 2017]. Thus, neglecting the data from June 2015 decreases the mean absolute error to 53 kg/m³ (R²=0.33). The mean absolute error decreases further to 40 kg/m³ (R²=0.8) when for snow depth values