Review comments on tc-2023-36 manuscript, entitled,” Brief communication: Comparison of in-situ ephemeral snow depth measurements over a mixed-use temperate forest landscape”.

General comments:

The tc-2022-7 manuscript, entitled,” Brief communication: Comparison of in-situ ephemeral snow depth measurements over a mixed-use temperate forest landscape” presents comparison snow depth measurements from two manual instruments (a magnaprobe snow depth probe and a federal snow tube) in a field and forest. A total of 936 paired observations are compared from sampling campaigns from December 2020 to February 2021.

The objectives of the study are to investigate the snow depth measurements using a magnaprobe and a federal tube are in an ephemeral snow environment with shallow snow and analyse differences whether related by land cover type.

As a general comment, the manuscript is designed and written well. It consists of extensive and important number measurements conducted and provided.

1. Thank you for your thoughtful review and comments.

I would like to see and wonder following points,

- In line 125: “Snow depth was derived by manual inspection of the photos and recorded to the nearest cm.” How are these snow depth measurements used? were they compared with magnaprobe and federal tube measurements?

1. The field cameras snow depth values were used to observe the snow depth on the sampling dates and the snowpack evolution between dates. Because they only recorded a single location that was not coincident with the magnaprobe and federal tube measurements, we solely used these observations to qualitatively track the evolution of snow depth in the field and forest at consistent locations. The first paragraph of results was modified to read:

“The three sampling campaigns, 18 December 2020, 4 February 2021, and 24 February 2021, all had shallow snowpacks. The field camera observations indicate that the snowpacks had similar depths, between 10 and 15 cm, on the three sampling dates with modestly deeper snow in the field than the forest.”

- In line 134: “Leaf litter depth was measured on 2 April 2021 after the spring snowmelt. The leaf litter depth was measured at each snow depth sample location.” There has been discussion on the effect of these litter depths with a different instrument. Since the measurements were done and I would expect to see some results or at least discussion on how these measurements can be used to calibrate the snow depth measurements with these two instruments (magnaprobe and deferral tube).

1. Thank you for the opportunity to expand on this point. We also made measurements of leaf litter using the magnaprobe where the weight of the probe was the only force applied on the ground to minimize penetration into the duff layer and underlying soil. Their average values were deeper than the collars. We did not make leaf litter depth measurements with the tubes.

We made minor modification to the methods, results, and discussion to add additional detail and to provide a more specific recommendation.

In the methods we added the magnaprobe information “Magnaprobe leaf litter penetration depth measurements, also made on 2 April 2021 in the forest, had an average value of 5.8 cm.”

In Results section 3.2, we added a bit more information about the litter depth relative to the difference between the instruments. “While these differences are significant, the average litter depths exceeded the differences between the magnaprobe and snow tube snow depths in the forest, which were 2.5, 1.7, and 1.4 cm on 18 December, 4 February, and 24 February, respectively.”

In the discussion, we recommended  “When leaf litter is evident, penetration into the organic layer should be quantified by using independent leaf litter measurements, preferably using the snow depth sampling instrument, and use to bias correct snow depths.”

Please check references: I could not see “Lopez-Moreno et al.’s (2020)” in references

1. Thank you. Added.

Thank you for the thoughtful review and overall supportive feedback which has made this a more valuable contribution. Responses appear in the attached document with appropriate figures.