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Colorado snowfall geodata: 1980-2010

Historic Snowfall geo-database with Total precipitation, 30-year Mean and Variability included. contains shapefile, kmz, pdf

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COLORADO 30yr snowfall geodata: 1980-2010

This is a geodata repository containing shapefiles and maps [image, kmz, pdf] supporting the publication below. NOTE: refer to README text files in each /geodata/shp/ directory for descriptions of attributes.

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Climate-Scale Maps of Cold-Season Precipitation in the Mountainous Areas of Colorado for Operational Forecasting Applications

Proceedings: International Snow Science Workshop 2014 Proceedings, Banff, Canada
Authors:
B.J. Marraccini [ PeakGIS LLC, Eldorado Springs, CO, USA ]
Brian Lazar [ Colorado Avalanche Information Center, Boulder, CO, USA ]
Ethan Greene [ Colorado Avalanche Information Center, Boulder, CO, USA ]

Date: 2014-09-29
Abstract: The PRISM precipitation model (v2014Jan) published by the PRISM Climate Group/NACSE provides a gridded (4km spatial resolution) estimate of monthly precipitation (mm) over conterminous United States derived from climate-elevation regressions which are weighted by topographic factors (such as elevation, aspect and terrain shadowing) and nearby weather station data. We have enhanced the PRISM gridded dataset using GIS technology by incorporating point precipitation values from the Colorado Avalanche Information Center's (CAIC) historical database. The data covers the water-year months of November through April, and was collected by ski area operators in Colorado and by the CAIC for highway avalanche forecasting operations. The result is a set of vector shapefiles detailing long-term (1981-2010), cold-season precipitation for the Colorado mountains. The dataset includes mean precipitation values for winter months; variability - % of mean, standard deviation, and identifies outlier events. We used these data to produce a mapset that will help benefit daily weather and avalanche forecasting operations as well as increase our capability to characterize the snow and avalanche climate areas of Colorado.

Language of Article: English

Keywords: forecasting, precipitation, mapping, snow climate, gis.

Creative Commons License
Climate-Scale Maps of Cold-Season Precipitation in the Mountainous Areas of Colorado for Operational Forecasting Applications by B.J. Marraccini, B. Lazar and E. Greene is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License