Fine weather snowmelt

Stage = 44cm and crystal clear water

The peak of the snowmelt season seems to have passed now. Today we can see that the water is crystal clear for the first time in several weeks (compare to March 28 photo in earlier post which also had stage of 44cm). The river is no longer carrying the greyish coloured sediment that we saw during early spring. Looking at the hydrograph below we can see how the flow decreases rapidly after the previous rain-on-snow peak, followed by two weeks of fine weather snowmelt. The only influence on the discharge is the daily pulse of snowmelt (often called diurnal melt pattern) caused by warmer day-time temperatures, plus the background groundwater flow. Studying the diurnal melt pattern it seems very consistent from day to day, with the minimum flow around 12 noon and the daily peak around 1800 hours. We can also clearly see that snowmelt is "on the wane" or decreasing over this period, as the mountain snowpack is retreating and disappearing.


Decreasing snowmelt with diurnal melt pattern