Understanding and Improving Snow Processes in Noah-MP over the Northeast United States via the New York State Mesonet

Details

• Personal Author:
  Letcher, Theodore W. ; Minder, Justin R. ; Naple, Patrick
• Corporate Authors:
  Engineer Research and Development Center (U.S.) ; Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (U.S.) ; State University of New York at Albany. ; United States. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
• NOAA Program & Office:
  OAR (Oceanic and Atmospheric Research) ; WPO (Weather Program Office)
• Description:
  Snow is a critical component of the global hydrologic cycle and is a key input to river and stream flow forecasts. In 2016, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration launched the National Water Model (NWM) to provide a high-fidelity numerical forecast of streamflow integrated with the broader atmospheric prediction modeling framework. The NWM is coupled to the atmospheric model using the Noah-MP land surface modeling framework. While snow in Noah-MP has been consistently evaluated in the western United States, less attention has been paid to understanding and optimizing its performance in the Northeast US (NEUS). The newly installed New York State Mesonet (NYSM), a network of high-quality surface meteorological stations distributed across New York State, provides a unique opportunity to evaluate Noah-MP performance in the NEUS. In this report, we document the methodology used to perform single-column simulations using meteorological inputs from the NYSM and compare the point evaluations against baseline NWM performance. We further discuss how enhanced surface energy balance measurements at a selection of NYSM sites can be used to evaluate specific components of Noah-MP and present initial results.
• Keywords:
  Flood Forecasting Hydrologic Cycle Hydrologic Models Rivers Snow Flood Forecasting Hydrologic Cycle Hydrologic Models
• Format:
  pdf
• Document Type:
  Technical Report
• Funding:
  Grant no. NA19OAR4590203
• Place as Subject:
  Northeastern States
• License:
  https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
• Rights Information:
  CC0 Public Domain
• Compliance:
  Submitted
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:6ca9cc239b50a9b0935639a7cb1aa9d5bf18540f714d35eb11ef4431e435cf0424971e2afe0a05c369d4292a78e26e3e0c56b4be8d0eb18fd8ff34167271a687
• Download URL:
  https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/69988/noaa_69988_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 5.67 MB ]