Surface-water quality and flow Modeling Interest Group
Snowmelt-Runoff Predictions in the Sierra Nevada
articles by
D.R. Cayan1,2, M.D. Dettinger2,
D.H. Peterson2, N. Knowles1, H.F. Diaz3,
L. Ingram4, L. Riddle1, R.E. Smith2,
and R. Uncles5
1Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, CA
2U.S. Geological Survey
3NOAA/ERL/Climate Diagnostics Center, Boulder, CO
4University of California, Berkeley
5Plymouth Marine Laboratory, UK
Editor's note:
A series of interesting articles on the prediction of snowmelt runoff were
published recently in the Summer, 1997 issue of the Interagency Ecological
Studies Program for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Estuary Newsletter. The web
versions of these articles reside elsewhere, but links to the articles are
included below. The image and some of the text below were taken from the
San Francisco Bay Ecosystems Access
web page.
The spring runoff from the Sierra Nevada is the last gasp of plentiful
freshwater inflow to the San Francisco Bay and Delta before the summertime dry
period. The pulse is evidently a response to almost simultaneous changes in
temperature over much of the western United States. A low pressure (winter)
pattern is replaced (within days) by a strong and expanding high-pressure
pattern, accompanied by high air temperature and a persistent surge in
snowmelt-driven discharge. Knowing when the runoff surge will occur is
important for reservoir, resource, and flood managers. USGS scientists
believe it may be possible to predict this surge as much as a week in
advance. These papers, written for the
Interagency Ecological Program, chart the
progress of this important approach.
Citations
Cayan, D.R., Peterson, D.H., Riddle, L., Dettinger, M.D., and Smith, R.E.,
1997, The spring runoff pulse from the Sierra Nevada: Interagency Ecological
Studies Program for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Estuary Newsletter, Summer
1997, p. 25-28.
Dettinger, M.D., Peterson, D.H., Diaz, H.F., and Cayan, D.R., 1997,
Forecasting spring runoff pulses from the Sierra Nevada: Interagency
Ecological Studies Program for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Estuary Newsletter,
Summer 1997, p. 32-35.
Peterson, D.H., Dettinger, M.D., Cayan, D.R., Smith, R.E., Riddle, L., and
Knowles, N., 1997, What a difference a day makes: Spring snowmelt in the
Sierras: Interagency Ecological Studies Program for the Sacramento-San
Joaquin Estuary Newsletter, Summer 1997, p. 16-19.
Knowles, N., Cayan, D.R., Ingram, L., Peterson, D.H., and Uncles, R., 1997,
Diagnosing the Flood of 1997 in San Francisco Bay with Observations and Model
Results: Interagency Ecological Studies Program for the Sacramento-San
Joaquin Estuary Newsletter, Summer 1997.
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