Spatially distributed water-balance and meteorological data from the rain–snow transition, southern Sierra Nevada, California

Abstract

Abstract. We strategically placed spatially distributed sensors to provide representative measures of changes in snowpack and subsurface water storage, plus the fluxes affecting these stores, in a set of nested headwater catchments. The high temporal frequency and distributed coverage make the resulting data appropriate for process studies of snow accumulation and melt, infiltration, evapotranspiration, catchment water balance, (bio)geochemistry, and other critical-zone processes. We present 8 years of hourly snow-depth, soil-moisture, and soil-temperature data, as well as 14 years of quarter-hourly streamflow and meteorological data that detail water-balance processes at Providence Creek, the upper part of which is at the current 50 % rain versus snow transition of the southern Sierra Nevada, California. Providence Creek is the long-term study cooperatively run by the Southern Sierra Critical Zone Observatory (SSCZO) and the USDA Forest Service Pacific Southwest Research Station's Kings River Experimental Watersheds (KREW). The 4.6 km2 montane Providence Creek catchment spans the current lower rain–snow transition elevation of 1500–2100 m. Two meteorological stations bracket the high and low elevations of the catchment, measuring air temperature, relative humidity, solar radiation, precipitation, wind speed and direction, and snow depth, and at the higher station, snow water equivalent. Paired flumes at three subcatchments and a V-notch weir at the integrating catchment measure quarter-hourly streamflow. Measurements of meteorological and streamflow data began in 2002. Between 2008 and 2010, 50 sensor nodes were added to measure distributed snow depth, air temperature, soil temperature, and soil moisture within the top 1 m below the surface. These sensor nodes were installed to capture the lateral differences of aspect and canopy coverage. Data are available at hourly and daily intervals by water year (1 October–30 September) in nonproprietary formats from online data repositories. Data for the Southern Sierra Critical Zone Observatory distributed snow and soil datasets are at https://doi.org/10.6071/Z7WC73. Kings River Experimental Watersheds meteorological data are available from https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2018-0028 and stream-discharge data are available from https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2017-0037.

Assessing the effects of forest biomass reductions on forest health and streamflow

“…These data were obtained from two KREW meteorological stations (Hunsaker & Safeeq, 2018), one located near the upper part of P303 at 1984 masl and a second located between the P301 and P303 stream gauges at 1750 masl ( Figure 1). To improve the timing of soilwater infiltration, snow, and rain phases at a daily time step were inputted into the model separately using a binary process where precipitation was designated as a snow event if the acoustic depth sensors (Bales et al, 2018a) located at either meteorological station recorded an increase in snow depth; otherwise it was labelled a rain event.…”

“…The modelled streamflow was compared to observed data that were measured from dual Parshall Montana flumes in each of the watersheds (Hunsaker & Safeeq, 2017). Three additional parameters affecting snowmelt were calibrated to observed snow water equivalent (SWE) obtained from a snow pillow at the upper Providence meteorological station (Bales et al, 2018a) (Table 2).…”

Resolving Drivers of a Spatial Gradient in Evapotranspiration Through the Simulated Translocation of Landscape Factors

“…Average air temperatures decrease from 17 to 0°C with elevation, with wet-season temperatures decreasing from 10 to −7°C (Figure 2(b)). Based on observations at the nearby Kings River Experimental Watersheds (Figure 1), the phase of precipitation transitions from mostly rain to mostly snow across an elevation range of approximately 1,500-2,100 m (i.e., rain-snow transition zone) (Bales et al, 2018;Dahlgren et al, 1997).…”

“…The area exhibits a Mediterranean climate characterized by cool to cold, wet winters and warm to hot, dry summers. Annual precipitation increases threefold with elevation, from approximately 36 to 113 cm year −1 (Figure 2 Water Resources Research mostly rain to mostly snow across an elevation range of approximately 1,500-2,100 m (i.e., rain-snow transition zone) (Bales et al, 2018;Dahlgren et al, 1997).…”

Evaluating methods for reconstructing large gaps in historic snow depth time series

“…Therefore, it is unclear if the methods developed for the reconstruction of other meteorological parameters are also easily applicable for snow depth time series. Additionally, for inter-station approaches there might be the problem of different relationships during accumulation and ablation phase between stations which could hinder such approaches (Bales et al, 2018). This might be especially true for stations at different elevations.…”