The operational ALADIN model in 4.4 km resolution at the Slovenian
meteorological service currently uses no snow assimilation. The snow
cover data are simple downscaled from the global ARPEGE.  Several
experiments have been performed to asses and evaluate the existing
snow analysis scheme inside the ALADIN package, called CANARI.  This
assimilation scheme (Taillefer, 2002) is based on OI and uses only
synop measurements.

Different sets of parameters (background errors, distance of
influence...) were examined in an assimilation cycle (either 6 or 24
hour) for a period of 20 days during January 2009 and compared to
operational ARPEGE initialization and to a simple first guess
initialization.