Winter season precipitation and snow processes and spring season runoff are studied for the alpine basins of the Southwest using new observations for the verification of a regional climate model. The regional climate model is evaluated for use in seasonal predictability studies for water resources in the Southwest. A 30 month integration of the NCAR RegCM, forced by analyses of observations, is performed and two winter seasons (1994 and 1995) are compared with observations which include precipitation from high elevation SNOTEL stations, snow water equivalent (SWE) maps for the western US, and monthly streamflow measurments for the upper Colorado River basin and several basins in the Sierra Nevada. Results show that the model simulates the seasonal patterns of precipitation and the differences in the two years quite well, but under predicts precipitation in the high elevations of the west. The errors in precipitation lead to further discrepancies between observed and simulated snowpack and its translation to snowmelt and runoff in the model. A discussion of the data and model results will be presented, as well as the prospects for the use of high resolution atmospheric models in seasonal and interannual water resource studies