Rain vs. snow

[Trix]

Pretty warm temperatures in Colorado so this week's storms will be dumping considerable rain rather than snow at higher elevations. I searched for a short answer as to whether this results in more or less runoff. Immediately found scholarly papers that gave me a headache. If course, water equivalents are most important, but sure curious about probable impact of early spring rain on this year's runoff.

 

[flowerbug]

Pretty warm temperatures in Colorado so this week's storms will be dumping considerable rain rather than snow at higher elevations. I searched for a short answer as to whether this results in more or less runoff. Immediately found scholarly papers that gave me a headache. If course, water equivalents are most important, but sure curious about probable impact of early spring rain on this year's runoff.

i am curious to see how much of whatever rains/snows that come across are captured by the neighboring regions.

if it is too warm way up and heavy rains that could present some problems with flooding which i'm sure everyone would want to avoid. i'm hoping it remains too cold way up and that if there is some rain on the snow it just freezes as it gets down in there because there is enough to buffer it. i hope. i surely do not know... just have to go on the hunch of some thermal mass being useful in that regards and this being the first chunk of warm rain to get there...

 

[Todd]

Rain and warm temps have melted a lot of snow in steamboat over the last week.

 

[AzTacoma]

I'm not sure... I tend to think it'll change the timing of run-off, but probably not total volume much. It seems to me we have slightly larger than average flows right now with warmer temps and rain... which will probably translate to slightly less of a snow run-off spike in May/June. If true, I'd bet the lake tops off a week or two earlier than normal. Of course this is just my amateur speculation, and any big weather events in the next couple months could change everything anyway.

 

[Trix]

More amateur speculation -- an inch of rain immediately soaks into the water shed and contributes to the aquifers/springs that ultimately feed LP. An inch of percipatation coming down as, say, a foot of snow would have considerably more evaporation on the mountains. Just a WAG. The scientists at USBR likely (certainly?) have these things built into there models. Anyway, the next week looks pretty good for Rocky Mountains moisture.

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