Monitoring of a shallow and highly variable snowpack's water content has been shown to be reliable with cosmic ray neutron sensing (CRNS). After hundreds of simulations, we show a CRNS instrument is best placed near areas of low snow accumulation that are near regions of high snow accumulation for an accurate estimate of the prairie snowpack's water content. The snow water equivalent from a CRNS was 2 to 5 times more likely to be representative of the prairie snow, compared to traditional snow monitoring methods.