How we measure snowpack in the West
How we measure snowpack in the West
A Nevada professor’s invention has steered Western water supply for a century.
Hello, and welcome to Western Water Notes.
Doing something a little different today. The top section is a post that was originally produced for KUNR and the Mountain West Bureau. It covers a bit of water history still with us today.
This time of year, we often hear a lot about snowpack. Is it good? Is it bad? What’s the runoff outlook? Whether the snowpack is above or below the median can have major implications for how water is managed for the rest of the year. But exactly how is snowpack measured? This post dives into that, looking at the origins of the tool used for those measurements, and the Nevada classics professor who invented it. Hope you enjoy the piece.
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-Daniel
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By Kaleb Roedel
This post originally appeared on KUNR/Mountain West News Bureau.
It’s a February morning in the mountains between Reno and Lake Tahoe, and I’m snowshoeing past towering green pine trees dusted with snow.
I reach an area of Mt. Rose where federal hydrologist Jeff Anderson is about to measure the snowpack.
“These are the snow tubes,” says Anderson as he assembles a blue metal tube that stretches more than 7 feet. “They’re basically a cookie cutter that will take a core of the snowpack.”
Anderson first weighs the tube without snow in it. Then he sticks the tube deep into the snowpack, pulls it out, and looks inside the end for soil.
“That tells us we hit the ground, we didn’t just hit an ice layer,” Anderson explains. “So, that looks pretty good. Now we’re gonna weigh it.”
The difference in the weight of the tube with snow gives Anderson an accurate measurement of how much water is in the snowpack, which is important for gauging water supplies for communities in the West.
“It contains 16.3 inches of water content,” Anderson says. “If we were to melt that down, that’s how much water should be on the ground.”
This tool and technique for measuring snow water was first used more than a century ago on this very mountain.
In the early 1900s, James Church was a professor at the University of Nevada, Reno. He taught classics, German and art history. Outside the classroom, he loved to be outside – in the mountains.
“He started to realize the importance snow had, and he understood how important snow was to the water supply,” Anderson says.
That propelled Church and researchers from the Nevada Agricultural Experiment Station to build a weather observatory on the summit of Mt. Rose. Their goal was to better track snowfall and spring runoff data.
In the process, Church developed and patented a snow tube he called the Mt. Rose sampler. It’s the device still used by Anderson and hydrologists around the world.
“I think that speaks to, one, how hard it is to measure snow. And, two, what a good design it was,” said Adrian Harpold, a professor in environmental science at the University of Nevada, Reno, and somewhat of a Church historian.
Before Church created the Mt. Rose sampler, snowpack measurements focused on depth. His invention, however, showed how much water was in the snow and would end up in rivers and lakes.
Two men on skis weigh a snow tube invented by Church to measure the amount of water in the snowpack.
“It’s a breakthrough that still resonates today, because if anything, the value of those predictions have only gone up over time,” Harpold says.
Mountain snowpacks are frozen reservoirs that slowly melt during spring and summer, and studies show human-caused climate change is shrinking them around the world.
Harpold says the snow science pioneered by Church does more than help water managers predict summertime water supplies for cities and farmers. It also allows emergency managers to forecast floods and droughts, which are becoming more frequent and severe in a warming world.
“The value of that small piece of metal that he invented is probably literally billions of dollars over the last 100 years,” Harpold says.
Back on Mt. Rose, as clouds swallow the sun and snow flurries float down, federal water master Chad Blanchard awaits the snowpack measurement results. Blanchard manages water levels and releases at four major reservoirs on the Truckee River, which supplies water to area’s cities, agriculture, and industry.
“This whole process of snow surveying is critical to managing water supplies throughout the West or throughout the world,” he says.
A man carrying a large blue pole on his right shoulder is smiling as he stands in the snow. He's surrounded by snow-covered trees.
Church’s groundbreaking work in the early 1900s became the backbone of water management in the West, says Anderson, adding that “by the ‘20s, which is only like 10 years after he developed the snow tubes, it already spread to other states across the West.”
And in 1935, after a year of severe drought, the federal government created a Western snow survey and water supply forecasting program, based entirely on Church’s techniques.
“You know, I kind of see him as many people in the Tahoe region that want to somehow combine their passion for being outdoors with their career,” Anderson says. “And he did that.”
A century later, newer technologies can measure the amount of water in the snow crunching beneath my snowshoes. It can be done automatically at remote weather stations called SNOTEL sites.
But Anderson says Church laid the groundwork for modern snow science. And if the data needs to be double-checked, he still breaks out his trusty Mt. Rose sampler.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Colorado and KANW in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Here are some other threads I’m watching:
First, Nevada officials held a meeting a few weeks ago to talk about how to manage capture on the Humboldt River, where groundwater pumping intercepts surface water flows. Here’s the YouTube video, and I’ll be writing more about this soon.
More on the above-normal water year from The Nevada Independent’s Amy Alonzo.
Arizona’s top prosecutor Kris Mayes is considering a lawsuit targeting corporate farmers that are overpumping water in two counties, the Arizona Republic’s Brandon Loomis reported. The attorney general told residents at a gathering in one county that “investigators are seeking examples of harm such as dry wells, cracked foundations and dust on which to build a possible case using the state’s nuisance laws…”
“We are counting on the communities of the Amargosa to join with us.” Partnering with KNPR, the Nevada Current’s Jeniffer Solis reports on pushback to a lithium mine proposal near the groundwater-dependent springs of Ash Meadows NWR — and all that’s at stake. It’s written with deep context and thoughtful reporting. Check it out.
This is must-read and moving story in the L.A. Times by reporter Tyronne Beason on the lack of access to water in the Navajo Nation. This whole paragraph stuck out to me: “While California wrangles with other Western states over the Colorado River’s drought-stricken water supply, Navajo water rights advocates estimate that the 175,000 members who live on the reservation subsist on average on just 5 to 10 gallons a day per person. Compare that to the 76 to 100 gallons of water the Environmental Protection Agency says most Californians use daily.”
Salmon in northern California face numerous threats. The disappearance of habitat. Climate change. Overfishing. But there’s another threat too: A chemical substance in tires. KQED’s David Ezra Romero looks at how this chemical can get into waterways, the fatal consequences for salmon and what the government is doing to regulate it.
Fishing and environmental groups want California and U.S. officials take action to limit the deaths of threatened steelhead trout and endangered winter-run Chinook salmon, the L.A. Times Ian James writes. The groups wrote in a letter that the pumps used to moved water across California have exceeded limits under the Endangered Species Act and called on officials to improve protections for the threatened fish.
More from the Sacramento Bee’s Ari Plachta on what’s going on in California: “Pumping plants in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta severely harmed or killed almost double the legal amount of Chinook salmon and Steelhead trout in recent months, dealing yet another blow to the struggling endangered species.”
Can a market incentivize groundwater recharge? I found this story fascinating with lots of applicability to other aquifers in the West. The piece looks at a coalition of irrigators and environmentalists looking to replenish a groundwater aquifer in Teton Valley, Idaho and the many barriers they face. For the Mountain Journal, Tom Hallberg writes: “Recharge has benefited farmers and fish in western communities like Idaho’s Eastern Snake River Plain and California’s Central Valley, and the group believes the data shows it can work in the Teton Basin. They hope it can.”
Damage and repairs at Glen Canyon Dam, via E&E News’ Jennifer Yachnin.
One other thing…
Earlier this week, InsideClimateNews published a piece I have been working on about the challenge of allocating water in Clayton Valley, the site of the country’s only active lithium mine. In the courts and administrative hearings, two companies have fought over how the state’s water statutes apply to their claims, as others are watching what happens. As I reported, some have filed applications to import water into the valley.
Here’s an excerpt, and you can read the full story here.
Mining operators across the West have faced major barriers in the global race for lithium. Mines come with large footprints that can disrupt wildlife habitat, harm cultural sites and put pressures on communities. On top of all that is another major challenge posing a barrier for lithium projects in the western U.S. and Clayton Valley: Competition for limited water supplies.
…
Albemarle claims it holds the rights to nearly all the groundwater in Clayton Valley, leaving little room for more companies to develop scores of additional mining claims. Water is so scarce here that two companies looking to mine in Clayton Valley recently filed requests with state regulators asking for permission to import groundwater from nearby valleys.
Exactly how much water is sustainable to use in this area is an open question. Many estimates looking at the volume of water stored in Nevada’s aquifers are based on science dating back to the 1960s. Even in cases where groundwater use remains below the sustainable yield, pumping can affect nearby areas or dry up springs, conflicting with other water rights.