An Analysis of Long-Term Precipitation and Snow Water Equivalent Records in the Lake Tahoe and Truckee River Watersheds

Submitted by Armida on Fri, 02/15/2013 - 09:57
TitleAn Analysis of Long-Term Precipitation and Snow Water Equivalent Records in the Lake Tahoe and Truckee River Watersheds
Publication TypeConference Proceedings
Year of Conference2009
AuthorsBoyle, D. P., Schumer R., Ashby J., Klieforth H., Makowski A., Barth C., and Garner C.
Conference Name77th Annual Western Snow Conference
Series TitleProceedings of the 77th Annual Western Snow Conference
Date PublishedApril 2009
PublisherWestern Snow Conference
Conference LocationCanmore, AB
KeywordsPrecipitation observations, cloud-seeding, SWE, long-term records, Lake Tahoe, Truckee River
Abstract

As part of the long-term Nevada Cloud Seeding Project, continuous manual measurements of storm precipitation and snow water equivalent (SWE) were made from 1966 through approximately 2001 at 29 sites throughout the Lake Tahoe and Truckee River watersheds in Nevada and California. Monthly values of precipitation for each of the sites have been estimated from the storm-based precipitation records from approximately 1968 through 1992. The processing of the remaining years of precipitation data and the entire period of record for the SWE measurements is underway and the entire data set will be available on the Nevada Water Resources Research Institute web site when completed. In this poster, we present an overview of this unique data set and its utility for: (1) improving the calibration of precipitation-runoff models to support river and reservoir operations in these watersheds; (2) testing and evaluating independent models (e.g., SNODAS, PRISM) designed to estimate the distribution of precipitation and SWE; and (3) estimating temporal and spatial statistics of precipitation and SWE in the watersheds. (Abstract only)
URLsites/westernsnowconference.org/PDFs/2009Boyle.pdf