Snowmelt season

First discharge measurement of the spring season, stage = 55cm, Ta = 7C

Snowmelt season is in full swing as you can see from the hydrograph above. First the hydrograph shows some small peaks in late January, followed by a period of steady flow recession during which time temperatures were mostly freezing.

Rain-on-snow and melt events start suddenly at the end of February, and you can see that during the second half of March the peaks are rising steadily as the basin becomes more and more saturated with snowmelt water, and groundwater levels rise. There is a moderate size rain-on-snow peak of almost 1.0m stage on 31 March (41mm of rain during 30-31 March). Recent cooler temperatures and the disappearing snow cover have led to river levels dropping. However, the daily snowmelt pattern is still clearly visible over the last three days of record.

Larch lysimeter site

Cedar lysimeter site

Young cedar lysimeter site with trace of snow remaining