Brief communication: Shared parameterisation for estimating snow water equivalent through cosmic ray neutron sensors in the Italian Alps

Abstract

Abstract. We present a novel approach based on leveraging a shared parameterisation to derive snow water equivalent (SWE) with cosmic ray neutron sensing (CRNS) probes. The network comprises 26 sites (1422–2901 ma.s.l.) in the Italian Alps. The parameterisation was defined by fitting neutron counts to 35 SWE measurements taken at 6 sites in the first half of the 2023–2024 snow season and validated with 111 SWE data from 2023–2024 and 2024–2025 at 13 sites. Our analysis shows that this approach retains good representativeness of the snowpack. Further results show that correlations between SWE series from coupled monitored and unmonitored sites are strongly affected by elevation differences.