From Drought to Floods: A Water Balance Analysis of the Tuolumne River Basin During Extreme Conditions, 2015-2017

The mountain snowpack responds in various ways to changes in precipitation and temperature regimes. Climate predictions overwhelmingly agree that temperatures will continue to rise, but future shifts in precipitation are more uncertain in the current literature (Luce et al., 2016). Regardless of future precipitation trends, winters are shortening and the likelihood of extreme events is increasing (Jentsch et al., 2007). One way to determine the effect of extreme events on water resources in snow-dominated catchments is to disaggregate the individual physical processes at work into the constituent components.