I had a chance to go out and do some network evaluation today, mostly to check on the effects of the 8" of snow we received over the weekend. When the snow first came down, it’s effects were very minor, mostly involving needing to resend a message where it was typical to get a confirmation returned after a several hop connection.
Things aren’t so good two days later. Apparently, the melting of the snow compacted it, which had a bigger effect on RF signals getting out consistently. I was able to ping on second try in places while needing to retry the send message 5 times or more before I got a confirmation on some links. Others were mostly unaffected. I suspect the way the signal goes and the position and thickness of the snow on the waterproof container makes a difference.
Be patient with things. We’re hoping the melting gets the snow off the solar panels on the relay nodes before battery life becomes an issue.