Long-term Changes in Distributed Precipitation Phase at Reynolds Creek Experimental Watershed, Idaho, USA.

Patrick Kormos, USDA-ARS, Boise, ID, United States, Danny G Marks, USDA-ARS, Northwest Watershed Research Center, Boise, ID, United States, Annelen Kahl, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Lausanne, Switzerland, David C Garen, NRCS, Portland, OR, United States, Andrew R Hedrick, USDA Agricultural Research Service, Boise, ID, United States, Scott Havens, USDA Agriculture Research Serv, Boise, ID, United States and Hans-Peter Marshall, Boise State University, Department of Geosciences, Boise, ID, United States

Contact First Author: Patrick Kormos; Patrick.Kormos@noaa.gov

Abstract ID#: 34559

 

English Abstract:
A warming climate poses significant challenges to water resource managers of the Western United States because the phase of precipitation often dictates hydrologic response. One of the few places in the world that we have sufficient measurements to accurately estimate precipitation phase is the Reynolds Creek Experimental Watershed. Distributed precipitation phase data are used to quantify changes in the volume of snow and mixed precipitation received over the past 30 years. We combine distributed air temperature and relative humidity from detrended kriging to obtain maps of dew point and wet bulb temperature. We then utilize a simple look up table to classify distributed precipitation as rain, snow, or mixed events.
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