BOISE — USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service is planning to install new automated snow survey sites throughout Idaho to better understand the ramifications of a mid-elevation snowpack that’s melted prematurely in recent years.

The Idaho Water Resource Board has budgeted $200,000 to share costs of the project with NRCS.

Brian Patton, planning division chief with the Idaho Department of Water Resources, said most snow survey stations are located at high elevations, where snowpack is heaviest, and hydrologists use the data to make assumptions regarding lower-elevation snowpack.

“The mid-elevation snow we used to count on being there based on high-elevation (snow telemetry) reporting just isn’t there any more,” Patton said. “The SNOTEL sites at high elevations are over-representing the amount of snowpack we have.”

Lyle Swank, watermaster for the Upper Snake River district, said the spring of 2015 provides a good example of why better mid-elevation snowpack data is needed. Water managers released reservoir storage for flood control based on a dense high-elevation snowpack, but the snowpack melted early at the mid-mountain level, causing runoff that managers anticipated would flow into streams to seep into the soil instead.

“If we would have known reduced inflows were coming, we could have held additional storage and gotten a better allocation,” Swank said, adding the project should provide managers “more accurate runoff and snowmelt yield data.”

Idaho NRCS water supply specialist Ron Abramovich explained Idaho has monitored snowpack since 1915. The state’s network now includes 80 automated SNOTEL stations — the most modern of which measure air temperature, soil moisture and soil temperature in addition to snow-water content — and 100 snow courses that are measured manually twice per month. The automated stations, which cost roughly $30,000 each to install and $3,000 per year to maintain, send and receive radio signals that are bounced off ionized meteor trails in the atmosphere.

Abramovich said the project is in the early planning stages, and he’s uncertain how many new SNOTEL sites will be needed. He plans to create a committee of climate and hydrology experts to aid in the project. He said it will take time to gather data to locate “data voids” and determine the best locations for the new sites, some of which may replace the manual snow courses.

Abramovich plans to solicit financial help and additional labor from universities and water users.

“In the long run, what we’re hoping to do is improve our streamflow forecasts,” he said.

University of Idaho climatology professor John Abatzoglou has studied mid-elevation snowpack and determined the average snow accumulation level has risen about 200 meters during the past 50 years. He believes the NRCS project could provide dissertation opportunities for UI doctoral students.

“Certainly the mid to lower elevations have been at the forefront of change,” Abatzoglou said. “These are regions that are going to be sensitive to a couple of degree difference in temperature.”