CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES FACING THE IDAHO NRCS SNOW SURVEY PROGRAM

The Federal, State and Private Cooperative Snow Survey Program was created in 1935 to coordinate and standardize the collection of data by the numerous parties making manual snow survey measurements. Historically, the primary focus of snow survey data was to provide agricultural water supply forecasts. The Soil Conservation Service/Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) has been the lead agency in the Cooperative Snow Survey since the early years.

In the 1980’s the installation of the SNOTEL network made the collection of daily and hourly data possible. The use of these data has grown tremendously by both the number of users and types of uses. As a result, the NRCS's role as a 'coordinator and technical information provider' has grown as numerous users rely on quality, high elevation, NRCS data and water supply predictions to make decisions that are impacted by the variable snowfall and streamflow.

The cooperative nature of measuring snow is still present in Idaho with 50 external cooperators and 25 internal snow surveyors making over 650 measurements a year. In recent years, due to turn-over and budget short-falls, the task of maintaining internal surveyors snow courses, as well as, meeting requests for new sites and products has become a challenge. It was suggested a Snow Survey Advisory Team would be valuable to provide guidance and recommendations. The first meeting occurred in June with discussions about data sites, optimization of network, watershed assessment, snowmelt timing runoff products, meta-data, and collaboration of research and implementation of work. Meta-data has also been requested by other agencies and is needed by climatic change researchers.

This talk will discuss the Snow Survey Advisory Team and opportunities to re-vitalize the cooperation nature of the program to better meet user's needs and utilize research capabilities at universities. Furthermore, it is hoped this collaboration will help stretch budgets to meet more requests and establish a cooperative effort for product development and distribution of information used at local, regional and national level.