Am I reading this right?

I "think" but am not sure that this is saying that the Henry's Fork
watershed has a snowpack at 79% of average even though the total
precipitation is well over 100% of average.

Is "snowpack" what "snow water equivalent" means? is these

ftp://ftp.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/data/snow/update/id.txt

On Dec 18, 10:08 am, "Larry L" wrote:
I "think" but am not sure that this is saying that the Henry's Fork
watershed has a snowpack at 79% of average even though the total
precipitation is well over 100% of average.

Is "snowpack" what "snow water equivalent" means? is these

I could be wrong but I think the lower SWE number just means that the
precipitation was light fluffy snow rather than heavy snow (or rain).
If the snow was heavier than average, then I think you could get a
higher SWE number than the precip number.

I've always thought that the snowpack numbers were different still --
because it measures what is actually accumulating on the ground,
rather than what fell. Although certainly correlated, this can be
different due to a variety of reasons; down by us we can have
significant mid-season melts. An early warm spring can drop snowpack
numbers down below average (for that time of year), even if the season
has been above average.

Just my 0.01999998,

Jon.

"Larry L" wrote in message
...
I "think" but am not sure that this is saying that the Henry's Fork
watershed has a snowpack at 79% of average even though the total
precipitation is well over 100% of average.

Is "snowpack" what "snow water equivalent" means? is these

ftp://ftp.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/data/snow/update/id.txt

Jon has it pretty much covered, but the major disconnect between total
precip and the snow water equivalent is due to the difference in the way the
two metrics are tracked. Total precip is measured over the "water year"
which, for the NRCS, is Oct 1 to Sep 30, while snow water equivalent is
measured by actually measuring the snowpack (either using corings of the
snowpack at the measuring site or by "pillows" that are located on site &
measure the weight of the snow on top of them) on the date reported. Any
precip that fell in the form of rain before the snow pack started to build
would not show up as snow water equivalent (nor would any that wasn't
retained in the snow pack - melted or simply ran thru).

Bob Weinberger La Grande, OR