The 2011 flood event in the Red River Basin: Causes, assessment and damages

Stadnyk, Tricia A.; Dow, Karen; Wazney, Lucas; Blais, Eric-Lorne

doi:10.1080/07011784.2015.1008048

Cited by 33 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…Rain-on-snow events occur when rain falls on a snowpack and are common in maritime mountain snowpacks such as in the US Pacific Northwest (Harr, 1981;Marks et al, 1998Marks et al, , 2001McCabe et al, 2007;Mazurkiewicz et al, 2008;Wayand et al, 2015) and also occur in eastern North America (Pradhanang et al, 2013;Buttle et al, 2016), central Europe Sui and Koehler, 2001;Garvelmann et al, 2015), northern Eurasia (Ye et al, 2008) and the Himalayas (Singh and Kumar, 1997). They have recently started occurring in the Canadian Prairies as the region responds to climate change (Dumanski et al, 2015;Stadnyk et al, 2016). When relatively warm rainfall occurs, it has been observed that melt rates can be enhanced, which may cause flooding (Harr, 1981;Sui and Koehler, 2001).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The cold rain‐on‐snow event of June 2013 in the Canadian Rockies — characteristics and diagnosis

Pomeroy

Fang

Marks

2016

Hydrological Processes

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The June 2013 flood in the Canadian Rockies featured rain‐on‐snow (ROS) runoff generation at alpine elevations that contributed to the high streamflows observed during the event. Such a mid‐summer ROS event has not been diagnosed in detail, and a diagnosis may help to understand future high discharge‐producing hydrometeorological events in mountainous cold regions. The alpine hydrology of the flood was simulated using a physically based model created with the modular cold regions hydrological modelling platform. The event was distinctive in that, although at first, relatively warm rain fell onto existing snowdrifts inducing ROS melt; the rainfall turned to snowfall as the air mass cooled and so increased snowcover and snowpacks in alpine regions, which then melted rapidly from ground heat fluxes in the latter part of the event. Melt rates of existing snowpacks were substantially lower during the ROS than during the relatively sunny periods preceding and following the event as a result of low wind speeds, cloud cover and cool temperatures. However, at the basin scale, melt volumes increased during the event as a result of increased snowcover from the fresh snowfall and consequent large ground heat contributions to melt energy, causing snowmelt to enhance rainfall–runoff by one fifth. Flow pathways also shifted during the event from relatively slow sub‐surface flow prior to the flood to an even contribution from sub‐surface and fast overland flow during and immediately after the event. This early summer, high precipitation ROS event was distinctive for the impact of decreased solar irradiance in suppressing melt rates, the contribution of ground heat flux to basin scale snowmelt after precipitation turned to snowfall, the transition from slow sub‐surface to fast overland flow runoff as the sub‐surface storage saturated and streamflow volumes that exceeded precipitation. These distinctions show that summer, mountain ROS events should be considered quite distinct from winter ROS and can be important contributors to catastrophic events. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The cold rain‐on‐snow event of June 2013 in the Canadian Rockies — characteristics and diagnosis

Pomeroy

Fang

Marks

2016

Hydrological Processes

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“…In Canada, flood types are related to regional and landscape settings (Buttle et al, 2016). Snowmelt floods are generated from large winter snow accumulation and rapid melt rates and are common in many regions of Canada (Lawford et al, 1995;Pomeroy et al, 2014;Rannie, 2016;Saad et al, 2016;Stadnyk et al, 2016). Snowmelt floods usually occur during the spring freshet, which can be coupled with heavy rainfall that can result in even more severe flooding because of rain-on-snow processes (Dumanski et al, 2015;Newton and Burrell, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of antecedent conditions on simulations of a flood in a mountain headwater basin

Fang

Pomeroy

2016

Hydrol. Process.

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A devastating flood struck Southern Alberta in late June 2013, with much of its streamflow generation in the Front Ranges of the Rocky Mountains, west of Calgary. To better understand streamflow generation processes and their sensitivity to initial conditions, a physically based hydrological model was developed using the Cold Regions Hydrological Modelling platform (CRHM) to simulate the flood for the Marmot Creek Research Basin (~9.4 km2). The modular model includes major cold and warm season hydrological processes including snow redistribution, sublimation, melt, runoff over frozen and unfrozen soils, evapotranspiration, subsurface runoff on hillslopes, groundwater recharge and discharge and streamflow routing. Uncalibrated simulations were conducted for eight hydrological years and generally matched streamflow observations well, with a NRMSD of 52%, small model bias (−3%) and a Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) of 0.71. The model was then used to diagnose the responses of hydrological processes in 2013 flood from different ecozones in Marmot Creek: alpine, treeline, montane forest and large and small forest clearings to better understand spatial variations in the flood runoff generation mechanisms. To examine the sensitivity to antecedent conditions, ‘virtual’ flood simulations were conducted using a week (17 to 24 June 2013) of flood meteorology imposed on the meteorology of the same period in other years (2005 to 2012), or switched with the meteorology of one week in different months (May to July) of 2013. Sensitivity to changing precipitation and land cover was assessed by varying the precipitation amount during the flood and forest cover and soil storage capacity in forest ecozone. The results show that runoff efficiency increases rapidly with antecedent snowpack and soil moisture storage with the highest runoff response to rainfall from locations in the basin where there are recently melted or actively melting snowpacks and resulting high soil moisture or frozen soils. The impact of forest canopy on flooding is negligible, but flood peak doubles if forest canopy removal is accompanied by 50% reduction in water storage capacity in the basin. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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“…This region is characterized by generally flat terrain and sparse vegetation. It is also highly prone to springtime flooding due to rapid snowmelt and river ice jams (e.g., Stadnyk et al 2016;Berghuijs et al 2016). Climate change may be exacerbating these flooding events by increasing temperature and precipitation over the region (e.g., Melesse 2004;Hirsch and Ryberg 2012;Liu et al 2017).…”

Section: Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improving snow estimates over the Red River basin during the spring using empirical relationships between satellite snow water equivalent and snow-covered area

Letcher¹,

Vuyovich²,

Jacobs³

2019

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Assessing rapid changes in snow storage during spring is critical for predicting river flooding along the Red River in the north-central United States. While passive microwave retrievals of snow water equivalent (SWE) over the Red River water basin are generally accurate, they are less certain during the spring due to snowmelt events. These degrade the SWE retrieval algorithms by introducing liquid water into the snowpack. To increase confidence in daily SWE estimates over the Red River basin, we use the concept of a SWE depletion curve to relate basin mean SWE to snowcovered area (SCA) as determined by the MODIS cloud-gap-filled daily SCA product. We use this concept to derive an empirical relationship between SWE and SCA over the Red River basin from 11 years of satellite observations (2007-2018). This relationship relies on the climatologically accurate passive microwave SWE product to mitigate acute inaccuracies in daily SWE retrievals caused by data gaps and complicated snowpack properties. In a comparison of SWE derived from the empirical SCA relationship to SWE estimated from the Snow Data Assimilation product, we find substantial quantitative improvement over the passive microwave SWE product during the spring melt season. DISCLAIMER: The contents of this report are not to be used for advertising, publication, or promotional purposes. Citation of trade names does not constitute an official endorsement or approval of the use of such commercial products. All product names and trademarks cited are the property of their respective owners. The findings of this report are not to be construed as an official Department of the Army position unless so designated by other authorized documents.

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The 2011 flood event in the Red River Basin: Causes, assessment and damages

Cited by 33 publications

References 2 publications

The cold rain‐on‐snow event of June 2013 in the Canadian Rockies — characteristics and diagnosis

The cold rain‐on‐snow event of June 2013 in the Canadian Rockies — characteristics and diagnosis

Impact of antecedent conditions on simulations of a flood in a mountain headwater basin

Improving snow estimates over the Red River basin during the spring using empirical relationships between satellite snow water equivalent and snow-covered area

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