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Wednesday, July 17, 2019 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Missing
Sisters
man found
safe
How much water do snowpacks hold?
By Steve Lundeberg
Correspondent
CORVALLIS 4 Oregon
State University researchers
have developed a new com-
puter model for calculating
the water content of snow-
packs, providing an important
tool for water-resource man-
agers and avalanche forecast-
ers as well as scientists.
<In many places around
the world, snow is a critical
component of the hydrologi-
cal cycle,= said OSU Civil
Engineering Professor David
Hill. <Directly measuring
snow-water equivalent is
difficult and expensive and
can9t be done everywhere.
But information about snow
depth is much easier to get, so
our model, which more accu-
rately estimates snow-water
equivalent from snow depth
than earlier models, is a big
step forward.=
The findings, published in
The Cryosphere, are related
to a NASA-funded snow-
depth project co-led by Hill
and also involving Oregon
State Ph.D. student Ryan
Crumley.
The project is called Com-
munity Snow Observations
and is part of NASA9s Citi-
zen Science for Earth Sys-
tems program. Snowshoers,
backcountry skiers and snow-
machine users are gathering
data to use in computer mod-
eling of snow-water equiva-
lent, or SWE.
The Community Snow
Observations research team
kicked off in February 2017.
Led by Hill, Gabe Wolken
of the University of Alaska
Fairbanks and Anthony
PHOTO PROVIDED
Researchers have developed models to more accurately measure the water content of snowpacks.
Arendt of the University of
Washington, the project orig-
inally focused on Alaskan
snowpacks. Researchers
then started recruiting citi-
zen scientists in the Pacific
Northwest. Currently, the
project has more than 2,000
participants.
The University of Alaska
Fairbanks has spearheaded
the public involvement aspect
of the project, while the
University of Washington9s
chief role is managing the
data. Hill and Crumley are
responsible for the modeling.
In addition to snow-depth
information collected and
uploaded by recreationists
using avalanche probes, vast
amounts of data are also
available thanks to LIDAR,
a remote sensing method that
uses a pulsed laser to map the
Earth9s topography.
The new model developed
by the Community Snow
Observations team and col-
laborators at the University
of New Hampshire calculates
snow-water equivalent by
factoring in snow depth, time
of year, 30-year averages
(normals) of winter precipi-
tation, and seasonal differ-
ences between warm and cold
temperatures.
<Using those climate nor-
mals rather than daily weather
data allows our model to pro-
vide SWE estimates for areas
far from any weather station,=
Hill said.
Researchers validated the
model against a database of
snow pillow measurements
3 a snow pillow measures
snow-water equivalents via
the pressure exerted by the
snow atop it 4 as well as a
pair of large independent data
sets, one from western North
America, the other from the
northeastern United States.
<We also compared the
model against three other
models of varying degrees
of complexity built in a vari-
ety of geographic regions,=
Hill said. <The results show
our model performed better
than all of them against the
validation data sets. It9s an
effective, easy-to-use means
of estimation very useful for
vast areas lacking weather
instrumentation 3 areas for
which snow depth data are
readily available and daily
weather data aren9t.=
In addition to NASA, the
National Science Foundation
and the Consortium
of Universities for the
Advancement of Hydrologic
Science supported this
research. The codes needed
to make this conversion from
snow depth to SWE are freely
available from the project
team.
An 86-year-old Sisters
man was found safe near
Government Camp after
being reported missing last
week.
The Deschutes County
Sheriff9s Office sent out a
bulletin seeking the public9s
help in locating Elwin <Gale=
Larson after he was reported
missing from his residence
in the 16000 block of Cattle
Drive Road in Sisters on
Tuesday morning, July 9.
Sgt. William Bailey of the
Deschutes County Sheriff9s
Office reported that Larson
was located later that day,
with his vehicle, in the area
of Government Camp.
<A motorist stopping at a
gas station had seen the recent
KTVZ alert on Facebook
regarding Larson being miss-
ing,= Bailey stated. <As the
motorist walked into the sta-
tion, she saw Larson and
immediately thought she rec-
ognized him from the alert.
After checking her phone to
confirm it was him, she noti-
fied law enforcement.=
Government Camp is
over 100 miles from Sisters.
Larson9s family drove there
to reunite with him.
www.NuggetNews.com
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Lions Club
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