The paper constitutes an important contribution to the field. Snow station data are used for many applications in hydrology. This study adds to our understanding of these stations’ representativeness of basin snow quantities and is an important addition to snow hydrology. The scale of the analysis and use of lidar sets it apart from previous studies. However, the authors should explain better and/or reevaluate the temporal analysis. They should also remove the landcover component from Research Question 3, since the author states in the discussion that the dataset used for this component of the analysis was inadequate. Additionally, the manuscript (especially the Analyses section) should be reorganized or condensed to make the story clearer.

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The paper addresses a serious question that have been raised many times on the representativeness of current point measurements of snow across the US at SNOTEL or equivalent sites. These questions have become increasingly important to answer with the proliferation of modelling and remote sensing efforts that utilize the sites as a tuning parameter. The increasing availability of lidar data provides an intriguing opportunity to better define the representativeness of the sites. While the paper needs refinement prior to publishing, the methods used are appropriate and provide great insight into the stationarity of snow depth point measurements at SNOTEL and CA DWR sites. I recommend the authors condense significant portions of the paper, especially in the introduction, methods, and results.