[Rockhounds] Nifty snowpack link...

[Tim Fisher]

I have used a lot of SNOTEL data in my modeling. If the USGS doesn't 
have a reasonable track record of SWEs for a gauge, they extrapolate 
from the SWE content of surrounding gauges (i.e., inches of 
water/inches of snow), and/or the trend of SWE/depth for the gauge in 
question for this season. It makes for quite a confusing picture when 
you are trying to standardize data for fisheries modeling purposes. I 
threw a lot of gauges out of my dataset because they didn't seemed 
track SWE in a nonsensical way. As the snow compacts it should have a 
higher SWE/depth ratio; if it doesn't then something is fishy. LOL

What I do know is that right now the 111% of normal blah blah is 
meaningless; the spring runoff has not come yet, it is still cold and 
miserable,  and without checking stats, this will be a record or 
near-record late runoff for most of the Pacific NW W of the 
continental divide. A friend in BPA's Power Supply division (the 
dudes responsible for forecasting this sort of thing) said on 
Wednesday that it would take a series of 80-90 degree days for the 
snow runoff to NOT be one of the latest on record, and that ain't 
happenin' folks. Although his mid-range weather models are saying 
that it is likely in the next few weeks. I think that throwing a 
straw in the air is about as reliable :P

At 12:13 PM 5/10/2008, you wrote:
>Holy snowman! If I'm reading this right, at Mule Creek there's still 
>more than 4.5 feet of snow! It's about 500 feet higher than Crystal 
>Park, but still...  lol. Last year on May 10th, the snow water 
>equivalent for Mule Creek was 11 inches; today it's 18.3 inches. 
>Their pecent of average must be based on something other than the 
>average of "today" over the years. (They don't seem to keep 
>historical snow depth data.) Last year, on June 1st snow water 
>equivalent was 1/2 inch. This year? Hard to say...maybe we'll call a 
>Butte rockshop before we leave Lewistown. I'm guessing there's a 
>good possibility that we won't be able to do Crystal Park 
>though...guess we'll just have to go back in August! lol
>
>It looks like Calvert Hill has a chance of being OK, and if nothing 
>else there are lots of places between Lewistown and home to check out.
>
>Julie

Tim Fisher
Ore-ROCK-On!
Email address at http://OreRockOn.com