Progress toward a rational program of snow‐melt forecasting

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Abstract
Recent studies have been encouraging in their promise of an ultimate rational solution of snow‐melt‐runoff problems associated with the forecasting of irrigation‐water supplies. Less encouraging is the obvious lack of pertinent data upon which to base the operation of forecasting methods which would take into account the influence of the heat absorbed by the snow from the blanketing air‐mass and that of radiation and condensation. Observational facilities must be provided which will give more accurate knowledge of the water in the snow and the conditions of mantle structure under which snow responds to melting influences. The location of these observational points must be in accord with statistical principles of sampling which will consider variations in basin shape, elevation, and aspect.The problem of utilizing water in the form of snow is best conceived of as one of conservation by storage, the great snowfields of the mountainous West being considered as vast reservoirs in which the life‐sustaining waters are impounded as realistically as is in the case of water reserves held behind man‐made dams. In the latter type of conservation the control of release is accomplished through mechanically operated gates and valves; in the former, Nature exercises a thermostatic control of water‐deliveries by integrating the factors which are known to provide heat for melting. A principal source of heat is that contained in an air‐mass moving over a snow‐area. Here heat is transferred to the snow‐surface through a continually renewed contact between snow and air occasioned by an active turbulence in the lower layers. Also, that portion of the Sun's heat‐energy which penetrates the atmospheric envelope contributes appreciable heat to melting processes.

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