Snow Grain Size Gauge Using Beads

Normally a hand lens and a crystal screen with a millimeter grid are used to determine the size of snow grains in the field. In this method each of snow grains is observed. In this paper, a new type of snow grain size gauge, the BEADSNOW 2000, is described. This gauge employs transparent glass beads of a range of sizes as visual samples for comparison purposes instead of a crystal screen with millimeter grid. The determination of the size of snow crystals is easily made by observing macroscopic groups of snow grains; no hand lens is needed. The sizes of the glass beads in the gauge are 0.2mm, 0.5mm, 1.0mm and 2.0mm, corresponding to the international classification of grain size.