Understanding snow interception and redistribution by forest canopies is essential for quantifying water resources in forested basins. Existing snow interception theories were developed for continuous, mature, sheltered needleleaf forest canopies and so their application to more open, windswept and diverse forest canopy structures is uncertain. This research aims to assess the influence of canopy structure and meteorology on snow interception processes in a windswept subalpine forest. Periodic UAV-Lidar surveys were conducted to gather high spatial resolution observations of snow accumulation and canopy structure. Continuous point-scale measurements of snowfall, throughfall, canopy intercepted snow load, hydrometeor diameter and velocity, air temperature, humidity and wind speed were also recorded. The spatial variation in forest structure was the most important factor controlling variation in interception and hence, subcanopy snow accumulation, with meteorological conditions contributing less to variability. However, during snowfall events at moderate wind speeds (1-2 m/s), interception efficiency increased by 10-20% compared to events at low wind speeds (< 1 m/s). This is hypothesized to be due to how the vectors of falling snow particle trajectories at different wind speeds are intercepted by forest canopies. These results show the maximum canopy snow load estimated by existing theories can be exceeded during moderate wind speed events and that interception efficiency increases slightly with canopy snow load. No influence of air temperature was found on interception efficiency or the maximum canopy storage capacity. This suggests that existing snow interception theories will need modification to be applied successfully in wind-exposed, discontinuous needleleaf forests.