Abstract: The continental regions of China are extensively covered by snow during winter. In this paper, the seasonalsnow cover in the 'Tianshan Mountains and Altay Mountain is observed and analyzed, based on the characteris*tics of the dry cold snow cover accumulating under the continental dclimatic conditions in northwest China. Com-pared with the humid warm snow cover, the dry cold snow cover is mainly characterized by small density, lowwater content, large temperature gradient, thick depth hoar, elc., and its metamorphism is dominated by thethermal exchange and the pressure of the overlying snow layers. According to the observed data, the solar radiation flux on the snow surface is dominated by a negative balance in the arid areas in China during the snow season; the albedo on the new fallen snow surface is up to 96%, and the transmission depth of short wave radiationin dry-cold snow cover is 28 cm. During the snow melting season in spring, the thickness of the depth hoar canoccupy 80% of the whole snow cover.

Key words: seasonal snow cover, dry cold snow cover, temperature gradient, Chian