Category: Springs, Rivers, Lakes and Streams

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SNOTEL Snowpack Recording Stations

Manual Snow Measurement
Cover image from
Snow surveying by James C. Marr
USDA 1940 Publication 380
Public Domain
Courtesy UVA, Google & HathiTrust

For a modern view visit
https://www.meted.ucar.edu/afwa
/avalanche/print.htm

Removing snow surveying apparatus
from canvas carrying case
preparatory to use
From
Snow surveying by James C. Marr
USDA 1940 Publication 380
Public Domain
Courtesy UVA, Google & HathiTrust

Water is a precious resource throughout the world. Most of Utah consists of arid habitats and many users clamor for their share of the scarce moisture. Ever-growing demand challenges water managers to insure that agriculture, cities and nature all get their portion. Predicting and monitoring stream flow is imperative in order to know how much to hold in reservoirs or send downstream, and when to anticipate floods, enact water conservation measures, and in general provide for all users.

Much of Utah’s water originates in the mountain snowpack. Early in the twentieth century, the Department of Agriculture constructed a series of Snow Courses in mountainous areas of the West. Hardy personnel periodically trekked in to measure snow depth with a long ruled stick. Water content was found by taking a core sample, weighing it and subtracting out the weight of the metal tube. Stream gauging stations installed by the US Geological Survey allowed correlation of stream flows with snowpack measures.

In the 1970’s, monitoring snow courses became more automated. The reporting stations were named “SNOTEL” for snowpack telemetry. Now there are over 600 SNOTEL sites in 13 western states. The measurement functions of SNOTEL stations are elegantly simple and reliable. Air and soil temperatures are monitored with standard thermocouples. Water content of the snowpack is measured by its weight atop a broad thin bladder called a snow pillow that is filled with antifreeze. The snow pillow is carefully spread on the ground. Accumulating snow presses down on the pillow, pushing some antifreeze out a connecting tube to a pressure sensor.

Some SNOTEL sites also measure snow depth, using the autofocus technology of the digital camera. Subject distance is gauged by the time delay of an ultrasonic pulse, like sonar or hearing your voice echo back in a canyon. At a SNOTEL station, a similar sensor is placed high above the expected snow line. As snow accumulates, the downward facing sensor reports the shortening distance between it and the snow surface.

SNOTEL stations have batteries and a solar panel to power their hourly data transmissions. Ogden has one of the two master receiving stations. Want to size up mountain snowfall from the last storm or know how warmly to dress for an outing? Just go to Utah’s SNOTEL information site on the web.

Credits:

Image: Public Domain, Courtesy University of Virginia, Google and HathiTrust, Cover image from Snow surveying by James C. Marr, USDA 1940 Publication 380
Theme Music: Written by Don Anderson and performed by Leaping Lulu from their CD “High Road, Low Road”
Text: Jim Cane & Linda Kervin, Bridgerland Audubon Society https://www.bridgerlandaudubon.org
Voice: Linda Kervin, Bridgerland Audubon Society https://www.bridgerlandaudubon.org
Additional Reading:

Water Conservation Begins with Snow Surveys, USDA NRCS, https://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/factpub/wc_ss.html

Snow Hydrology: SNOTEL, Randall Julander, Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of Utah, (formerly at https://www.civil.utah.edu/~cv5450/snotel/snotel.htm)

Utah Snow Survey Program, USDA NRCS, https://www.ut.nrcs.usda.gov/snow/

NRCS Snow Surveyor Collects Vital Water Data, Lives Dream Job, Spencer Miller, NRCS, Jan 10, 2013, https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/national/home/?cid=STELPRDB1076993

Snow Surveys and Water Supply Forecasting, National Atlas of the United States, US Department of the Interior, formerly at https://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/factpub/sect_4a.html

Utah Snow Survey Program, Natural Resources Conservation Service, US Department of the Interior, https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/utah/snow-survey

Map, Utah USGS SNOTEL Stations https://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/snotel/Utah/utah.html

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Properties of Water

Click for a larger view of water as frost on a window, Courtesy and Copyright Andrea Liberatore
Water as frost on a window
Courtesy and © Andrea Liberatore

Click for a larger view of water surface tension on a quarter, Courtesy and Copyright Andrea LiberatoreSurface tension – water drops
on a quarter
Courtesy and © Andrea Liberatore

Click for a larger view of water as snowflakes, Courtesy and Copyright Andrea LiberatoreWater as snowflakes
Courtesy and © Andrea Liberatore

In our winter wonderland, water is all around. It piles upon the landscape in great white drifts. It is a substance life is completely dependent upon and as ordinary as it seems, this tasteless, odorless substance is actually quite amazing. Up to 60% of our body mass is due to water, and life as we know it would not exist if not for water’s unique physical properties.

When most known liquids get colder they contract – shrinking around 10 percent in total volume. Water contracts too, but only until it reaches its freezing point, at which time it reverses course and begins to expand. This molecular marvel does wonderful things for life on earth. As water freezes and expands, the resulting ice becomes lighter than its liquid form, causing it to float. If ice contracted as other liquids do, it would sink, and lakes would freeze from the bottom up – and freeze quickly, meaning big changes for aquatic life. Water in all forms happens to be a very good insulator, meaning that it doesn’t change temperature very quickly. Ice floating on top of a pond insulates the water underneath, keeping it warmer, and therefore liquid, longer than it normally would. Obviously this is beneficial for local creatures like fish and beavers not to mention the penguins, whales and seals that thrive in the colder parts of our planet.

Another critical property of water is its stickiness. Individual molecules are generally more attracted to each other than to other substances such as air or soil. This ‘stickiness’, or cohesion, creates surface tension, which allow puddles, rivers, and raindrops to form, and also enables water striders to glide on the water’s surface and rocks to skip across a lake. Water tension is also responsible for a tree’s ability to siphon water from the soil and transport it to the very topmost leaf. However water’s bonds aren’t so strong as to be unable to break when a fish swims through or when you cannonball into the deep end. You can observe surface tension at home by dripping water onto the head of a coin, and watching it ball up into a surprisingly large mound.

Water is also one of the only known substances that naturally occurs in three phases – solid, liquid, and gas. This is important to many facets of life including the proper functioning of the weather system as we know it. Thankfully, there is a lot of water here on earth – about 320 million cubic miles of it. However, only four tenths of a percent of that comes in the form of freshwater lakes & rivers. Most of the rest is locked up in glaciers and oceans. It’s also important to realize that this is all of the water that Earth has ever had, and all the water we’re ever going to get, which can lead to some interesting thoughts about where that water you are about to drink has previously been. Perhaps it was once part of Lake Bonneville, in the snow that fell on the back of a wooly mammoth, or in a puddle slurped up by a brachiosaurus. If only water could talk…

For more sources and to calculate your water-use footprint, visit our website at www.wildaboututah.org.

For the Stokes Nature Center and Wild About Utah, this is Andrea Liberatore.

Credits:

Images:  Andrea Liberatore, Stokes Nature Center in Logan Canyon.

Text:     Andrea Liberatore, Stokes Nature Center in Logan Canyon.

 

Additional Reading:

Bryson, Bill (2004) A Short History of Nearly Everything. Broadway (Random House): New York.

U.S. Geological Survey (2013) The USGS Water Science School. Accessible online at: https://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/

United Nations: Water. Accessible online at https://www.unwater.org/

Calculate your water footprint:
https://www.waterfootprint.org/?page=files/YourWaterFootprint

 

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Colorado Pikeminnow

Colorado Pikeminnow, Image courtesy US FWS, J.E. Johnson, Photographer

Colorado Pikeminnow
Ptychocheilus lucius
Image courtesy US FWS,
J.E. Johnson, Photographer

One of the largest minnows in the world, the Colorado pikeminnow was once found throughout the Colorado River basin. This is no bait minnow. Also known as the Colorado squawfish, it reputedly grew to a whopping 6 feet in length with a weight topping 80 pounds and a life span of 40 years. The largest caught in recent times have been only 3 feet long and 9 pounds.

Colorado pikeminnows once flourished throughout the Colorado River and most of its major tributaries. Historically, these abundant, torpedo-shaped fish were prized for their fine flavor. They were an important food fish for Native Americans and welcomed at restaurants as far away as San Francisco. Also called white salmon by early settlers due to their migratory behavior, pikeminnows journeyed 200 miles to spawn in turbid backwaters.

Then we built dams which blocked the migratory runs of pikeminnows. Below the Grand Canyon, the last wild Colorado pikeminnow was caught in 1976. The proliferation of dams has drastically restricted their range. Moreover, reservoirs flood what was suitable river habitat, and their dams alter river flows and water temperature downstream.

The Colorado pikeminnow was one of the first fish given full protection under the Endangered Species Act in 1973. Today, there are two remaining wild populations. One resides in the upper reaches of the Colorado river system, the other in the Green River system. Efforts underway to restock Colorado pikeminnow in the San Juan River basin appear to be successful.

A broadly based coalition of partners established the Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program in 1988. This program focuses on 4 species of fish: humpback chub, bonytail, Colorado pikeminnow and razorback sucker. Their goal is to restore and manage stream flows and habitat, reduce competition from some non-native fish species and increase populations using hatchery raised young. If they are successful, this giant piscine predator will once again take its rightful place in the upper Colorado River ecosystem.

This is Linda Kervin for Bridgerland Audubon Society.

Credits:

Photos: Courtesy US FWS, images.fws.gov
Theme: Courtesy & Copyright Don Anderson Leaping Lulu
Text & Voice: Linda Kervin, Bridgerland Audubon Society

Additional Reading:

Other Wild About Utah Pieces by Linda Kervin

Colorado Pikeminnow, Wikipedia, wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_pikeminnow

Researchers Capture Fourth Largest Endangered Colorado Pikeminnow in San Juan River Since 1991, US Fish & Wildlife Service, December 13, 2010, https://www.fws.gov/mountain-prairie/pressrel/10-84.htm [Link Updated December 2023]

Colorado pikeminnow (Ptychocheilus lucius), Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program, 2012, https://www.coloradoriverrecovery.org/general-information/the-fish/colorado-pikeminnow.html [Link Updated December 2023]

Colorado Pikeminnow, Nevada Department of Wildlife, Formerly held at https://www.ndow.org:80/wild/animals/facts/fish_colorado_pike_minnow.shtm [Not working December 4, 2023]

Colorado Pikeminnow, Species, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, https://fieldguide.wildlife.utah.gov/?species=ptychocheilus%20lucius [Link Updated December 2023]

https://wildlife.state.co.us/Fishing/SpeciesID/Pages/FishID.aspx [Not working December 4, 2023]

https://wildlife.utah.gov/fishing/nonnative/endangeredfishfacts.pdf [Not working December 4, 2023]

Colorado Pikeminnow endangered in Carbon, Daggett, Emery, Garfield, Grand, San Juan, Unitah and Wayne Counties, Utah’s Species of Greatest Conservation Need Species by County,
https://wildlife.utah.gov/pdf/WAP/utah-sgcn-list-by%20county-10-23.pdf

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Utah’s Glacial History

Moraine with erratics, Photo Courtesy and Copyright Mark Larese-Casanova, Photographer
Moraine with erratics
Photo Courtesy & Copyright
Mark Larese-Casanova, Photographer

Little Cottonwood Canyon, Photo Courtesy and Copyright Mark Larese-Casanova, PhotographerLittle Cottonwood Canyon
Photo Courtesy & Copyright
Mark Larese-Casanova, Photographer

Hi, this is Mark Larese-Casanova from the Utah Master Naturalist Program at Utah State University Extension.

It is amazing to see just how much of an impact the large amount of snowfall from last winter still has on the annual cycle of nature. Of recent note, wildflower blooms in the mountains seem to be at least 2-3 weeks behind normal schedule. Hiking through snow in late July had me thinking about colder times when Utah’s mountains were covered with ice that flowed as glaciers.

The most recent period of glaciation in Utah occurred between 30,000 and 15,000 years ago when Utah’s climate was, on average, up to 30?F cooler. At times during this period, much of the western half of Utah was covered by Lake Bonneville, which contributed tremendous amounts of moisture as snow throughout Utah’s mountain ranges. As the snow accumulated at high elevations, its sheer weight caused it to recrystallize into ice. Once the masses of ice became heavy enough, gravity pulled them down slope, carving out characteristic U-shaped valleys.

At the top of the valleys, where the glaciers formed, we can often find large, bowl-shaped cirques. In the Wasatch Range, the Little Cottonwood Canyon glacier formed at the top, creating Albion Basin, and reached the mouth of the canyon where calved icebergs into Lake Bonneville. The Uinta Mountains contained such large glaciers that even many of the mountain peaks are rounded.

As temperatures warmed during the end of the last ice age, glaciers receded and left behind large piles of soil and rocks, known as moraines. Terminal moraines at the end of a glacier’s path, can act as natural dams to create lakes. Enormous boulders, known as glacial erratics, can often be found discarded along canyons.

While glaciers don’t currently exist in Utah, there are several permanent snowfields in shaded high mountain areas. So, if you’re feeling a little nostalgic and missing that extra long winter we had this year, you still a chance to hike up above 9,000 feet and cool your toes in the snow.

For Wild About Utah, I’m Mark Larese-Casanova.

Credits:

Images: Courtesy & Copyright Mark Larese-Casanova
Text:     Mark Larese-Casanova, Utah Master Naturalist Program at Utah State University Extension.

Additional Reading:

Utah Geological Survey https://geology.utah.gov/surveynotes/gladasked/gladglaciers.htm

Parry, William T. 2005. A Hiking Guide to the Geology of the Wasatch and Uinta Mountains. University of Utah Press.

Stokes, William Lee. 1986. Geology of Utah. Utah Museum of Natural History.