Snow Distribution in Relation to Solar Radiation on Two Swiss Pre‐Alp Watersheds

The differences in the water equivalent of snow on 15 transects at mid‐March are closely related to estimated differences in potential solar beam radiation. Only slight improvement results from refining the radiation estimates to account for shading, clouds, and diffuse and reflected radiation. For 1967‐1969, 79% of the variance is associated with estimated global radiation. The results suggest that estimates of solar radiation can be useful for extrapolating snowpack water equivalent measurements over watersheds in which differential ablation is the chief cause of areal variation.