1 / 16

“There’s No Business Like Snow Business!” Hydrology of the Blue River, Colorado

“There’s No Business Like Snow Business!” Hydrology of the Blue River, Colorado. Alison Skwarski GIS for Water Resources November 30, 2006. Photo courtesy of USGS – taken by Cora Winter. Motivation – Blue Watershed.

jesse-hendrix
Download Presentation

“There’s No Business Like Snow Business!” Hydrology of the Blue River, Colorado

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. “There’s No Business Like Snow Business!”Hydrology of the Blue River, Colorado Alison Skwarski GIS for Water Resources November 30, 2006 Photo courtesy of USGS – taken by Cora Winter

  2. Motivation – Blue Watershed • Located along the western side of the continental divide – 50 miles west of Denver in the Rocky Mts. • Easternmost part of HUC Region 14 – Upper Colorado Basin • Size: 1769.8 km² ~ 683 mi² • Dillon Reservoir provides drinking water to Denver Courtesy of USGS – taken by Lane Wyatt

  3. Objective - Recognize the specific relationships between the annual snow depth in the winter and the stream flow intensity during  the spring - Determine impacts of the reservoir and dam on the watershed - Investigate the reservoir levels in response to the snowfall, precipitation, and stream flow

  4. 0 3.5 7 14 Miles Blue River runs through the Blue Watershed Headwaters in the mountains near Hoosier Pass Drains to the Dillon Reservoir, water storage facility for Denver Dam is earth filled and the reservoir has a 3,233 acre surface area Blue River continues north to the Green Mountain Reservoir

  5. What’s going on here?! NHD flowlines are not connected Elevation in meters

  6. SNOTEL Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) is a common snowpack measurement. It is the amount of water contained within the snowpack. It can be thought of as the depth of water that would theoretically result if you melted the entire snowpack instaneously.   Useful for stream forecasting

  7. ! ( ! ( ! ( March 2002 March 2005 ! ( ! ( ! ( ! ( ! ( ! ( ! ( Snow Water Equivalence Rasters

  8. ! ! ( ( ! ! ( ( April 2002 April 2005 ! ! ( ( ! ! ( ( ! ! ( ( Snow Water Equivalence Rasters

  9. ! ! ( ( ! ! ( ( May 2002 May 2005 ! ! ( ( ! ! ( ( ! ! ( ( Snow Water Equivalence Rasters

  10. Figure 1: Comparison of Snow Water Equivalence and Streamflow from 2002 to 2006

  11. Impacts of the Dam on the Streamflow Figure 2: USGS Streamflow Blue River below Dillon after the Dam

  12. Figure 3: Comparison of Precipitation and Streamflow from 2002 to 2006

  13. Figure 4: Further Downstream Comparisons of Streamflow

  14. Conclusions Snowpack contributes greatly to the stream flow intensity of the Blue River Dillon Dam greatly influences the downstream flow of the Blue River in the watershed To be completed: Investigate the reservoir levels in response to the snowfall, precipitation, and stream flow

  15. Questions? Can you spot the chipmunk in this photo?

More Related