American Association of State Climatologists, Coeur d’ Alene, ID 18 July, 2007 Update Since Rapid City Jan Curtis Applied Climatologist National Water and Climate Center Natural Resources Conservation Service Portland, OR

American Association of State Climatologists, Coeur d’ Alene, ID 18 July, 2007 Snow Survey and Water Supply Forecasting Program W e live in the best of times and worst of times. Technology Recognition Budget Manpower

American Association of State Climatologists, Coeur d’ Alene, ID 18 July, 2007 Snow Survey and Water Supply Forecasting Program 12 western states including Alaska 60 FTE (36 Field, 24 NWCC) 25.5M acres of irrigated agriculture $51.1B in annual market value (Ag. Census, 2002)

American Association of State Climatologists, Coeur d’ Alene, ID 18 July, 2007 NRCS SNOTEL Network SNOTEL network –12 western states –730+ sites –16 million observations (2005) –16.1 million downloads (2006) 920 manual snow courses

American Association of State Climatologists, Coeur d’ Alene, ID 18 July, 2007 SNOTEL Site Augmented Data Array Snow water content Precipitation Temperature Snow depth Relative humidity Wind speed/direction Solar radiation Soil moisture / temperature

American Association of State Climatologists, Coeur d’ Alene, ID 18 July, 2007 Daily State Map - Colorado

American Association of State Climatologists, Coeur d’ Alene, ID 18 July, 2007 Google Earth – New Products – Daily WSF

American Association of State Climatologists, Coeur d’ Alene, ID 18 July, 2007 Google Earth – New Products – Daily WSF

American Association of State Climatologists, Coeur d’ Alene, ID 18 July, 2007 Google Earth – New Products – Daily WSF

American Association of State Climatologists, Coeur d’ Alene, ID 18 July, 2007 Google Earth – New Products – Daily WSF

American Association of State Climatologists, Coeur d’ Alene, ID 18 July, 2007 Google Earth – New Products – Daily WSF

American Association of State Climatologists, Coeur d’ Alene, ID 18 July, 2007 Soil Climate Analysis Network SCAN (Soil Climate Analysis Network) –118 sites in 39 states –Soil-climate monitoring –956K downloads in 2006 –Critical for drought monitoring a.gov/scan/ a.gov/scan/ 7 new sites

American Association of State Climatologists, Coeur d’ Alene, ID 18 July, 2007 New WSF Process - VIPER “Visual Interactive Prediction and Estimation Routines”

American Association of State Climatologists, Coeur d’ Alene, ID 18 July, 2007 PRISMPRISM

Seamless Daily PRISM ( ) (Serially Completed Series - Precipitation) 4km Resolution 19 April 1970 >12,000 coop sites Note time of OBS differences

American Association of State Climatologists, Coeur d’ Alene, ID 18 July, 2007 Seamless Daily PRISM ( ) (Serially Completed Series – Tmin & Tmax) >9,000 coop sites

American Association of State Climatologists, Coeur d’ Alene, ID 18 July, 2007 Seamless-Precipitation

American Association of State Climatologists, Coeur d’ Alene, ID 18 July, 2007 Daily PRISM ( ) Extremes for CONUS

American Association of State Climatologists, Coeur d’ Alene, ID 18 July, 2007 Seamless-Precipitation 15,341 days

American Association of State Climatologists, Coeur d’ Alene, ID 18 July, 2007 Seamless-Precipitation

American Association of State Climatologists, Coeur d’ Alene, ID 18 July, 2007 Seamless-Precipitation

American Association of State Climatologists, Coeur d’ Alene, ID 18 July, 2007 Seamless-Temperature

American Association of State Climatologists, Coeur d’ Alene, ID 18 July, 2007 Seamless-Temperature

American Association of State Climatologists, Coeur d’ Alene, ID 18 July, 2007 Seamless-Temperature

American Association of State Climatologists, Coeur d’ Alene, ID 18 July, 2007 Seamless-Temperature

American Association of State Climatologists, Coeur d’ Alene, ID 18 July, 2007 New Plant Hardiness Map

American Association of State Climatologists, Coeur d’ Alene, ID 18 July, 2007 Conflicting Data Feeling Warmth, Subtropical Plants Move North By SHAILA DEWAN May 3, 2007

American Association of State Climatologists, Coeur d’ Alene, ID 18 July, 2007 Agricultural Applied Climate Information System (AgACIS) A partnership with the Regional Climate Centers new

American Association of State Climatologists, Coeur d’ Alene, ID 18 July, 2007 AgACIS Products

American Association of State Climatologists, Coeur d’ Alene, ID 18 July, 2007 SS-WSF Future Directions 1.Further automating of manual snow courses to SNOTEL sites where real-time information is needed to provide water supply forecasts. 2.Expansion of SCAN to provide governments, water managers, agricultural producers, businesses and researchers improved information about soil moisture conditions and potential droughts. 3.Improving models and computational capacity to provide more frequent and accurate water supply forecasts and assessments of soil moisture.

American Association of State Climatologists, Coeur d’ Alene, ID 18 July, 2007 SNOTEL QC “When installation first began in the middle 1970s, the network was never envisioned as a data source for climate change studies; however the network has become a de facto source for middle and higher elevation snowpack, precipitation and temperature data. While technology continues to improve the quality of these observations, spatial weighing methodology is now being employed to correct these archived data. The results of this effort may indeed provide the basis for identifying a ‘benchmark’ SNOTEL and snow course network for climate change studies.” – Phil Pasteris, NWCC

American Association of State Climatologists, Coeur d’ Alene, ID 18 July, 2007 Regression of “Weather vs. Climate” This is a scatter-plot showing how this method can be used for daily interpolation. On the x-axis is the mean July temperature, and it is being regressed with the daily maximum temperature for July 20, This plot, for a location new Mount Hood in Oregon, shows that even though the temperature is nearly 5C above the mean, the spatial patterns are remarkably similar.

American Association of State Climatologists, Coeur d’ Alene, ID 18 July, 2007 Analysis A new window opens that shows: –A separate line for each station. –The cooldown during July-Aug 1991 at Salt Creek Falls is clearly anomalous compared to it’s nearest neighbors.

American Association of State Climatologists, Coeur d’ Alene, ID 18 July, 2007 Details on New SNOTEL QC Procedures for Temperature Compare with all-time state record +/- 3C Tmin>Tmax Tmax=Tmin=0 (new) Flatliners –>=2 consec days w/ obs of 0 (new) – old +/-0.1C –>10 consec days of value w/i+/- 0.4C (new) - old +/-0.1C Incorporate upper-air for surface inversions Predictor stations w/i +/- 100km of target site –Have at least 50% of days overlapping (+/- 15 days & +/-2 years. Target site must have >30 days of data or not QC’d. Plus other statistical tests Software will be free to anyone. –Potential addition to TempVal QC?

American Association of State Climatologists, Coeur d’ Alene, ID 18 July, 2007 Spatial QC System for SNOTEL Data Uses climate mapping technology and climate statistics to provide a continuous, quantitative confidence probability for each observation, estimate a replacement value, and provide a confidence interval for that replacement. Start with daily max/min temperature for all SNOTEL sites, period of record Completed: 1 st Review (Feb 07’) 2 nd Review (Oct 07’) Move to precipitation, SWE, soil temperature and moisture expected: Fall 2007 Develop automated system for near-real time operation at NRCS Part of the WestMap Initiative? eventually

American Association of State Climatologists, Coeur d’ Alene, ID 18 July, 2007 Thank you - Questions? Jan Curtis, NRCS, National Water and Climate Center, (503) Snowy Mountains, WY