Tired of winter? Are snowball fights, sledding, and snowmen just not cutting it anymore? I just might have the cure for those winter blues: SnowTweets, a new citizen science project that uses the popular micro-blogging service, Twitter, to gather snow depth measurements from all over the world.
Measuring snow is actually as easy as sticking a ruler into an undisturbed patch of snow. Tweet that measurement along with your location to the hashtag, #snowteets, and you’ll be helping to make satellite remote sensing estimates and numerical simulation models more accurate.
You can even see your data along with all other reported snow depth measurements using the Snowbird visualization tool. Snowbird shows where the reports are located and how much snow there is at each reported site.
Check out SnowTweets today before it’s too late (i.e. spring arrives!). If you’ve measured any snow depths, tell us about your experience by posting in your Science for Citizens Member Blog. Or you could even send us a tweet at @Sci4Cits.