How does soil moisture change when it rains or snows? Do soil moisture values depend on recent weather?
In most places soil moisture will increase following a rain or snowfall events because soils will absorb the water from rain and snowmelt. After the precipitation event, the soils will slowly dry out and lose soil moisture until the next precipitation event. The only circumstance in which soil moisture is not affected by precipitation is where the soil is already saturated with water prior to a precipitation event, or where the ground is frozen. In these cases, water ponds and trickles off the land surface and soil moisture does not increase because it was already at 100% saturation, the maximum possible soil moisture value.
