Abstract. Rain-on-snow (ROS) events in Svalbard are becoming a more frequent occurrence during the winter season due to rapid climate warming across the Arctic in recent decades. ROS events have gained increasing attention in recent decades due to their cascading impacts on the physical environment, and terrestrial and marine ecosystems that are impacted by snowmelt. While the frequency of ROS events in Svalbard has been well studied and documented, other characteristics of ROS, such as their duration, intensity and seasonal timing have received less attention. Such characteristics are equally important to quantify due to their potential consequences for the winter snowpack and snow-dependent ecosystems. This study addresses this knowledge gap using the Copernicus Arctic Regional Reanalysis (CARRA) for the present day analysis and km-scale climate projections from a regional climate model for the future period of 2030–2070 under the high emissions scenario SSP5-8.5. For the present climate, the results show significant and increasing trends in all characteristics but confined mainly to low-lying areas of Nordaustlandet and some areas in the east of the archipelago, while no statistically significant trend was found in the southern and western areas which typically exhibit the largest values in all characteristics. Analysis of the future projections showed that the largest changes relative to present day conditions in all ROS characteristics will take place over the mountainous and glaciated areas in the north and northeast of the archipelago, while some low lying western coastal areas will experience a decrease. This reduction is expected to be the result of fewer days with snow, shortening the season where rain can fall on an existing snow cover. Moreover, while ROS has increased most in November and February, the future climate simulation features a substantial increase in ROS events in April, which experiences very few, if any, ROS events in the present climate, which may lead to considerable changes in snow hydrology. Further work could include analysing an ensemble of climate projections for Svalbard to produce a range of ROS scenarios, as well as carrying out a more in-depth analysis of the hydrological impacts associated with the changes in ROS characteristics identified here.