TY - Generic T1 - SNOWPACK MODELLING OF THE SALT BASIN WITH WATER MANAGEMENT IMPLICATIONS T2 - 69th Annual Western Snow Conference Y1 - 2001 A1 - Fassnacht, S.R. A1 - Helfrich, S.R. A1 - Lampkin, D.J. A1 - Dressier, K.A. A1 - Bales, R.C. A1 - Halper, E.B. A1 - Reigle, D. A1 - Inman, B. KW - Colorado River, SCA, AVHRR, Snowpack estimates AB -

The NOAA/NWS National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center produces maps of the areal extent of snow-cover over the Western US to assess the state of the snowpack. The binary product represents snow-no snow, but cannot estimate the snow-covered extent within an individual pixel (1 kin2). For the Colorado River Basin, fractional snow-covered area (SCA) has been derived from Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) data by the NASA Southwest Regional Earth Science Applications Center. The SCA maps are combined with snow water equivalent maps to develop snowpack water volume estimates. The uncertainty of using the binary product instead of the fractional SCA product for total SCA and snowpack water volume estimates were compared for the Salt-Verde watershed in central Arizona. The basin volume estimates derived from a combined binary SCA product and SWE estimates were evaluated assuming uniform 1%, 50%, 100% SCA and a linear and quadratic relationship between SCA and elevation. Inherent errors in the AVHRR fractional SCA and SWE product propagate into the snowpack water volume estimates. Snowpack estimates derived from AVHRR sub-pixel products are more accurate than the binary estimates.

JF - 69th Annual Western Snow Conference T3 - Proceedings of the 69th Annual Western Snow Conference PB - Western Snow Conference CY - Sun Valley, Idaho UR - sites/westernsnowconference.org/PDFs/2001Fassnacht.pdf ER -