Have you ever wondered why you start hearing abut stream flow forecasts and reservoir storage before winter is over? There is a small crew of Natural Resource Conservation Service personnel who figure that out for us!  

Every month through the winter they travel to remote locations to measure the depth and the density of our snowpack. These locations which area actually measured are called snowcourses. In addition to measuring snowcourse, athere is a constellation of Snotel sites. 

Snowtel is an installation which is automated, recording environmental and precipitation information and transmitting it via satellite to central locations. All this information is compared to information from past years and predictions can be made which forecast our spring runoff.         

This information is employed to plan the water storage and movements in reservoir systems, farmers use the information to plan their cropping years, and municipalities use the information to prepare themselves and their residents for changing water supply and demand. 

Some of the water you used to brush your teeth with this morning might have been weighed and measured as snow and is therefore responsible for helping us make decisions that are really important to all of us. From the University of Wyoming Cooperative Extension Service, I’m Eric Peterson.