In situ meteorological forcing and evaluation data, and bias-corrected reanalysis forcing data for cold regions modelling at ten sites: one maritime (Sapporo, Japan), one arctic (Sodankylä, Finland), three boreal (Old Aspen, Old Jack Pine and Old Black Spruce, Saskatchewan, Canada) and five mid-latitude alpine (Col de Porte, France; Reynolds Mountain East, Idaho, USA, Senator Beck and Swamp Angel, Colorado, USA; Weissfluhjoch, Switzerland).

The long-term datasets are the reference sites chosen for evaluating models participating in the Earth System Model-Snow Model Intercomparison Project (ESM-SnowMIP). Periods covered by the in situ data span from 1994 to 2016 with the period of available data varying by location from between 7 and 20 years of hourly meteorological data, with evaluation data (snow depth, snow water equivalent, albedo, soil temperature and surface temperature) available at varying temporal intervals.

30-year (1980-2010) time-series have been extracted from a global gridded surface meteorology dataset (Global Soil Wetness Project Phase 3) for the grid cells containing the reference sites, interpolated to one-hour timesteps and bias corrected.