General structure

The PRO profile time series file has the structure described below:

a header section containing the metadata for the location;
another header defining the properties and attributing them a code;
a data section containing the layers' properties prefixed by the property code.

Example

The time resolved snow profiles are stored in ".pro" files structured as following:

[STATION_PARAMETERS]
StationName      = Davos:Baerentaelli
Latitude         = 46.701
Longitude        = 9.82
Altitude         = 2560
SlopeAngle= 0.00
SlopeAzi= 0.00
[HEADER]
#2012-06-11T16:37, Snowpack DEFAULT version 20120611.193 run by "bavay" (research mode)
0500,Date
Full profile, labels 0nnn (elements)
0501,nElems,height [> 0: top, < 0: bottom of elem.] (cm)
0502,nElems,element density (kg m-3)
0503,nElems,element temperature (degC)
0506,nElems,liquid water content by volume (%)
0508,nElems,dendricity (1)
0509,nElems,sphericity (1)
0510,nElems,coordination number (1)
0511,nElems,bond size (mm)
0512,nElems,grain size (mm)
0513,nElems+1,grain type (Swiss Code F1F2F3), including SH on surface
0514,3,grain type, grain size (mm), and density (kg m-3) of SH at surface
0515,nElems,ice volume fraction (%)
0516,nElems,air volume fraction (%)
0517,nElems,stress in (kPa)
0518,nElems,viscosity (GPa s)
0519,nElems,soil volume fraction (%)
0520,nElems,temperature gradient (K m-1)
0521,nElems,thermal conductivity (W K-1 m-1)
0522,nElems,absorbed shortwave radiation (W m-2)
0523,nElems,viscous deformation rate (1.e-6 s-1)
0530,8,position (cm) and minimum stability indices:
        profile type, stability class, z_Sdef, Sdef, z_Sn38, Sn38, z_Sk38, Sk38
0531,nElems,deformation rate stability index Sdef
0532,nElems,natural stability index Sn38
0533,nElems,stability index Sk38
0534,nElems,hand hardness either (N) or index steps (1)
0535,nElems,optical equivalent grain size (mm)
0601,nElems,snow shear strength (kPa)
0602,nElems,grain size difference (mm)
0603,nElems,hardness difference (1)
0604,nElems,structural stability index SSI
0605,nElems,inverse texture index ITI (Mg m-4)
0606,nElems,critical cut length (m)
[DATA]

The each data line starts with a code as described in the header followed by the number of elements (except for the date line) and for each element, the value of the matching parameter. For example, the lines:

0500,10.12.1995 12:30
0501,31,27.21,29.07,30.62,31.57,33.30,35.25,37.46,39.82,40.92,42.86,44.22,45.74,47.41,49.15,50.63,52.46,54.58
0502,17,277.7,274.2,268.6,267.0,258.4,248.4,233.5,218.1,207.8,225.1,185.9,176.0,162.5,155.0,127.7,122.7,114.4

provide the date and time (line starting with 0500), then the elements heights for each of the 17 elements (line starting with 0501) and the elements densities (line starting with 0502).