Eleven years of mountain weather, snow, soil moisture and streamflow data from the rain–snow transition zone – the Johnston Draw catchment, Reynolds Creek Experimental Watershed and Critical Zone Observatory, USA

Abstract

Abstract. Detailed hydrometeorological data from the rain-to-snow transition zone in mountain regions are limited. As the climate warms, the transition from rain to snow is moving to higher elevations, and these changes are altering the timing of downslope water delivery. To understand how these changes impact hydrological and biological processes in this climatologically sensitive region, detailed observations from the rain-to-snow transition zone are required. We present a complete hydrometeorological dataset for water years 2004 through 2014 for a watershed that spans the rain-to-snow transition zone (https://doi.org/10.15482/usda.adc/1402076). The Johnston Draw watershed (1.8 km 2 ), ranging from 1497 to 1869 m in elevation, is a sub-watershed of the Reynolds Creek Experimental Watershed (RCEW) in southwestern Idaho, USA. The dataset includes continuous hourly hydrometeorological variables across a 372 m elevation gradient, on north-and south-facing slopes, including air temperature, relative humidity, and snow depth from 11 sites in the watershed. Hourly measurements of incoming shortwave radiation, precipitation, wind speed and direction, soil moisture, and soil temperature are available at selected stations. The dataset includes hourly stream discharge measured at the watershed outlet. These data provide the scientific community with a unique dataset useful for forcing and validating hydrological models and will allow for better representation and understanding of the complex processes that occur in the rain-to-snow transition zone.

Soil temperature and soil moisture dynamics in winter and spring under heavy snowfall conditions in North‐Eastern Japan

“…Due to increasing temperatures in winter a trend of increasing amounts of rain and a decrease of snowfall over the years has been already reported (Takeuchi, Endo, & Murakami, 2008;Yasunaga & Tomochika, 2017). Thus, the rain/snow ratio in the snowfall region of north-eastern Japan has been increasing as winters are becoming warmer (Godsey et al, 2018). Since changes in precipitation even under thick snow covers result in changes in soil moisture, the possibility to predict soil moisture changes based on meteorological data can be a powerful tool for future characterisations of the hydrological cycle.…”

“…Agriculture in north-eastern Japan, mainly paddy fields for rice production, consume immense amount of water from snowmelt (Hayashi, Hirota, Iwata, & Takayabu, 2005;Tanaka & Sato, 2005). Within the last decades, multiple studies have focused on the dynamics of snowfall and rainfall (Godsey et al, 2018), soil hydrological processes (Asanuma & Kamimera, 2004;Callaghan et al, 2011) or soil frost (Hardy et al, 2001). Soil frost has been studied to characterize the role soil plays on the winter hydrological cycle (Edwards, Scalenghe, & Freppaz, 2007;Stadler, Wunderli, Auckenthaler, Flühler, & Bründl, 1996), since forest ecosystems rely on the availability of water in spring (Conner et al, 2016;Ohta et al, 2001;Osumi, Ikeda, & Okamoto, 2003).…”

A database of water and heat observations over grassland in the north-east of Japan

“…In situ observational databases play a dominant role in all research disciplines. In hydrometeorological studies, water and temperature observations from field work are essential for validating differently sourced data (Jackson et al, 2009;Liang et al, 2011;Guillevic et al, 2012), supporting theoretical modeling (Grayson and Blöschl, 2001), estimating the energy budget (Hirschi and Seneviratne, 2017;Makarieva et al, 2018) and recording historical climatic variation (Godsey et al, 2018;Kormos et al, 2018) for different subjects (Qu et al, 2016;Godsey et al, 2018). A full set of in situ hydrometeorological observations is introduced here from a well-maintained grassland located in the north-east of Japan, which has been continuously operated since 1981 by the Environmental Dynamics & Prediction (EDP) department of the Center for Research in Isotopes and Environmental Dynamics of the University of Tsukuba, Japan.…”

Interaction of wind and cold‐season hydrologic processes on erosion from complex topography following wildfire in sagebrush steppe

“…Field studies of high-intensity rainfall simulations (32.5 m 2 plots) on these lands report low event sediment yields, ranging from near 0 to <0.1 t ha À1 (Johnson and Blackburn, 1989;Pierson et al, 2009;Pierson and Williams, 2016). Runoff from snowdominated sagebrush uplands occurs primarily during the spring snowmelt season as streamflow, but hillslope runoff does occur during winter rainfall events on frozen soil or snow (Blackburn et al, 1990;Pierson and Wight, 1991;Seyfried and Wilcox, 1995;Pierson et al, 2001a;Godsey et al, 2018). The quantity and timing of runoff from these systems are strongly regulated by the amount and distribution of accumulated snow, the onset and duration of the snowmelt period, soil water conditions, and above-and below-ground hillslope hydrologic connectivity (McNamara et al, 2005;Seyfried et al, 2009;Williams et al, 2009;Nayak et al, 2010;Chauvin et al, 2011;McNamara et al, 2018).…”