PUBLICATIONS Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres RESEARCH ARTICLE Large snowmelt versus rainfall events in the mountains 10.1002/2014JD022753 Steven R. Fassnacht1,2 and Rosemary M. Records3 Key Points: 1ESS-Watershed Science, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA, 2Cooperative Institute for Research in the • Large daily snowmelt equals or 3 exceeds precipitation in the mountains Atmosphere, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA, Department of Geosciences, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA • Daily precipitation equals or exceeds rainfall in the mountains Abstract While snow is the dominant precipitation type in mountain regions, estimates of rainfall are used for design, even though snowmelt provides most of the runoff. Daily data were used to estimate the 10 and Supporting Information: • Readme 100 year, 24 h snowmelt, precipitation, and rainfall events at 90 Snow Telemetry stations across the Southern • Table S1 Rocky Mountains. Three probability distributions were compared, and the Pearson type III distribution yielded the most conservative estimates. Precipitation was on average 33% and 28% more than rainfall for Correspondence to: the 10 and 100 year events. Snowfall exceeded rainfall at most of the stations and was on average 53% and S. R. Fassnacht,
[email protected] 38% more for the 10 and 100 year events. On average, snowmelt was 15% and 8.9% more than precipitation. Where snow accumulation is substantial, it is recommended that snowmelt be considered in conjunction with rainfall and precipitation frequencies to develop flood frequencies. Citation: Fassnacht, S. R., and R. M. Records (2015), Large snowmelt versus rainfall events in the mountains, J. Geophys. Res. 1. Introduction Atmos., 120, 2375–2381, doi:10.1002/ 2014JD022753.