Snowpack and Its Impact on Weather and River Flow over Western U.S.

Snowpack plays an important role in the weather and river flow forecasting from winter to early summer over western U.S. In this talk, I will overview our recent work in this area:

1. We have developed a big data analytics that allows us to consistently use snowpack measurements from hundreds of government sites (SNOTEL) and tens of thousands of volunteer sites (COOP) to develop the first daily 4 km snow mass and snow depth dataset from 1981 to present over conterminous U.S. Using this dataset, we are able to document the temporal and spatial variabilities of snowpack over U.S. and understand their drivers.
2. We have found and interpreted the significant impact of snowpack on NCEP operational subseasonal to seasonal forecasting
3. We have demonstrated how the snowpack data can improve the seasonal Colorado River flow prediction