Studies of snow transport in low-level drifting snow

The snow-drift observations were performed as regards snow-drift by noting the surface drift which contributed significantly to the total amount of snow-drift and to the drift formation. The following results are obtained: (1) Drifting snow near the snow surface is transported mainly by saltation motion at the wind speeds lower than 10 m/s (1 m level). (2) The mean length of saltation paths of snow particles ranges from 5-14 cm (wind speed: 5 m/s) to 11-30 cm (10 m/s) and the rebound mass of drifting snow on the snow surface ranges from about 10 3 g/cm2·s (5 m/s) to 4x 10-3 _ 2 X 102 g/cm·s (10 m/s). (3) The maximum snow-drift rate is represented by the simple equation Q = 0.03 V3 (5<V<12m/s), where Q is the snow-drift rate in g/m·s and V is the wind speed in m/s. (4) The snow-drift is developed to the 90% of the saturated value of the drift rate in a length of 30 to 60 m.