Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

Presentations, discussions, and individual annual reports are located at: http://www.ocs.orst.edu/pub/reports/wera-102/ Jan Curtis, 2006 President, stepped down and was replaced by George Taylor (Oregon Climate Service). Mike Anderson of California was elected Secretary. This year the committee met jointly with NC1018, Impact of Climate and Soils on Crop Selection and Management. Some sessions were conducted together, others separate. Participants agreed that the joint meeting was helpful as a means of better understanding scientists from a different region (northcentral US) and a different discipline (soil science).

California Department of Water Resources This past year has seen the state climate office for California organize itself and develop a program plan, achieve ARSCO certification, and launch a variety of projects in partnership with academic personnel. One of the projects, ET Forecasts, originated out of conversations from the 2006 WERA-102 meeting. In the ET Forecast project, Prof. Rick Snyder from UC Davis worked with the National Weather Service Sacramento Weather Forecast Office (WFO) to develop a 5-day ET forecast product based on existing gridded forecast data the Sacramento WFO was producing. The method used is based on a program for computing ET developed by Prof. Snyder. The forecast product is being verified using data from the California Irrigation Management Information Service (CIMIS) network. A second project with personnel from UC Merced produced monthly summaries of snow covered area assessments for watersheds in the Sierra Nevada derived from MODIS satellite data. The monthly summaries were posted on the state climatologist web site and excerpts were used in the monthly summaries from February through May. A similar effort is planned for the coming year. The third project of note embarked upon during the past year is a partnership with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administrations Earth Science Research Laboratory (NOAA-ESRL) and Scripps Institute of Oceanography to begin implementing an enhanced observation network for extreme precipitation over California. The network will include soil moisture sensors at both CIMIS and snow survey sites, a network of vertically integrated atmospheric moisture sensors based off of the United States Geological Surveys GPS network, and vertically pointing radar at reservoir sites to help identify snow lines during precipitation events. A series of data processing and manipulation tools will also be developed to make data access and analysis functional in an operational environment. Colorado Climate Center Completed the 119th year of continuous climate monitoring at the Fort Collins Weather Station on the CSU campus supporting diverse monitoring and research applications. Coordinated continued expansion and enhancement of the multi-entity Colorado Agricultural Meteorological Network (COAGMET). Pursued funding for technical support and quality control. Conducted in-depth study of alfalfa reference evapotranspiration to determine if data quality, continuity and station siting have been adequate to begin to perform annual variability and trend assessments of ET. With the help of a new grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Office of Education, we are undertaking a multi-state expansion of the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow network (CoCoRaHS). This network of local citizens of diverse ages and backgrounds is serving many practical purposes including improved local-scale sub-county monitoring of precipitation patterns, enhancing environmental literacy among volunteer participants, and enhancing partnerships with NWS/State Climate offices. More progress was made toward future automation of snowfall and depth measurements. Complete manual and automated snow depth data were collected for the 2006-07 winter at 17 sites in the U.S. in collaboration with the National Weather Service. Efforts to estimate snowfall from changes in total depth of snow on the ground are ongoing. Extreme cold and snow over portions of eastern Colorado this past winter resulted in coordinated efforts with NWS, FEMA and state and county emergency management offices to improve the delivery and interpretation of data from volunteer weather observers in remote rural areas. Many deficiencies in the current system of information collection, dissemination and interpretation became obvious during this recent winter disaster. We took the first steps during summer 2007 towards Walking Through the Water Year. This is a youth-based water education program connecting students and teachers with the water resources monitoring and research communities to better understand and make use of our weather and water monitoring capabilities. A series of student-conducted water videos and television shows will be produced between now and next year in northern Colorado. Timely precipitation allowed Colorado to make it through the year with excellent crops and improving water supplies, finally exiting the lingering drought that started in 2000 and peaked in 2002. Drought monitoring, outreach, and education continues to be an important routine function of the Colorado Climate Center. Climate change emerged as a top priority of Colorados new Governor. We continued on ongoing project assessing Colorados best long-term weather stations for trend analysis and detection. No weather stations were found to represent the mountain areas of Colorado that were free from data inhomogeneities. USDA NRCS National Water and Climate Center http://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/climate/ The PRISM spatial climatology datasets have been updated to include the 1971-2000 maximum and minimum temperatures, dew point, and precipitation monthly and annual means and totals (http://www.ocs.oregonstate.edu/prism/products/matrix.phtml?vartype=tmax&view=maps). Unlike the 1961-1990 data that was produced at a 4km resolution, this latter data are at a 30 arc sec (~800 m) resolution. Improvements in the data include better coastal, inversion, and mountain rain shadow parameterization. The SNOTEL Network (http://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/snow/) has been operating in the Western States for more than 25 years. Despite difficulties in maintaining these remote mountain stations, most observations are received with high reliability. However, about five percent of the temperature data are lost (missing) and another three percent are corrupt. In order to replace missing or suspect data, the PRISM Group (http://mistral.oce.orst.edu/www/snotelqc/) at Oregon State University, under contract by the NRCS, has developed a QC methodology that employees the spatial climatology along with upper air sound data to identify valley inversions. The end result is all daily observations (taken at midnight) are compared with nearby stations and are given confidence probabilities as to the reliability of the QC fix. These level II flags are therefore conditional and the end user can determine a threshold that is deemed acceptable. The original data and the spatial methodology predicted and (blended) final QC values are shown in a statistical output file. A contract to create a 4km daily gridded PRISM dataset of the lower-48 using COOP temperature and precipitation (gap filed dataset) is underway with a completion date of 30 September 2007. The period will cover 1960 to 2001. When completed, the data will be accessible via the internet for free. These gapped filled data methodology can be reviewed: Eischeid, J.K., P. A. Pasteris, H. F. Diaz, M. S. Plantico, and N. J. Lott, 2000: Creating a serially complete, national daily time series of temperature and precipitation for the Western United States. J. Appl. Meteor., 39, 1580-1591 AgACIS has been launched through the NRCS DataMart for USDA internal use. This is part of the ACIS (http://www.hprcc.unl.edu/products/current.html), xmACIS (http://www.weather.gov/climate/xmacis.php?wfo=ilx) (NWS NOWData) backbone. It is expected that these climate resources will be part of the NIDIS (http://www.westgov.org/wga/publicat/nidis.pdf) portal. A new NRCS Soil Classification (http://soils.usda.gov/survey/geography/mlra/index.html) is now available. Although not directly related to climate, knowing soil type helps with the computation of ET, soil erosion, and air quality. Have been involved in the planning phases of NIDIS (http://usgeo.gov/docs/nto/NIDIS_NTO_2006-0925.pdf). In contract to develop a new Plant Hardiness Map for the lower-48 using ~800 m resolution PRISM (1971-2000). This product is expected by late-2007. VIPER (New water supply forecasting tool) summarized at: (ftp://ftp.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/downloads/centennial/article3220060925.pdf) Enhancing SNOTEL network with secondary sensors (Wind, Humidity, Radiation, Soil Moisture, Soil Temperature, Fuel Moisture Sensor  fire potential) Adding SCAN sites (http://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/scan/) as described (http://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/scan/SCAN-brochure.pdf) Incorporate Google Earth applications for better data display (http://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/snotel/earth/index.html) Incorporate GIS for SNOTEL Data display (http://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/gis/index.html) New Mexico Climate Center Program The New Mexico Climate Center continues to collect data from automated and manual networks in New Mexico. The data is presented through a web interface in various formats with and consists of both raw and interpolated values. The New Mexico Climate Center is developing a Linux based web server to replace the current Windows 2000 web server. The new Linux system will use an SQL database management system to store the incoming data and will have a more robust data search method with a geo-referenced interface planned for future development. New methods of communication with the automated weather stations maintained by the office New Mexico Climate Center are being tested. Currently, a new weather station is on-line using a combination of radio-based and Internet communications, facilitating more frequent data retrieval. Climate data was used to drive a water balance model for scheduling irrigations in pecans orchards. Additionally, a journal article was written on the adoption of soil based and climate based irrigation scheduling by pecan growers. A simplified irrigation nomograph is being developed based on long term averaged climate data to schedule irrigation in pecan orchards because the climate internet based system was not readily used adopted by the growers in the region. The Assistant State Climatologist became the leader of chairs the State Drought Monitoring Work Group and publishes a monthly drought status report to the drought monitor task force in New Mexico. The Assistant State Climatologist assistant state climatologist has been working with the Climate Assessment of the Southwest program (CLIMAS) to increase outreach efforts on climate information about drought and drought in New Mexico The Assistant State Climatologist has presented talks to the pecan growers, turf managers, and to members of the University of New Mexico (shouldnt this be New Mexico State?) community on the climate information and drought status in New Mexico. The State Climatologist presented at a poster at the Modus workshop in Montana on titled,  A review of satellite remote sensing of forest health. Oregon Climate Service, Oregon State University Worked with NOAA, USDA and other agencies who collect meteorological data to provide better dissemination methods Worked with Western Regional Climate Center on improved methods for near real-time input of information from NOAA Cooperative observers Developed mapping techniques to provide daily and monthly climate maps Participated in the Oregon Drought Council and Oregon Water Availability Committee, which examined water supply issues in the state. OCS has worked with the National Weather Service to develop improvements to the PRISM model which is used for creating detailed climate maps. OCS participated with a multi-year USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) in creating new methods for spatial quality control of weather and climate information. Development of new methods for estimating Probable Maximum Precipitation and other extreme precipitation events using GIS. Chaired the Climate subcommittee of the Oregon GIS Framework Implementation Team. Climate is one of 13 discipline areas falling under Oregons Geographic Information Council, which coordinates state GIS activities. A cooperative effort with Alabama A&M University has involved collection of soil moisture data and other parameters in northern Alabama and southern Tennessee for USDA-NRCS. This represents an expansion of NRCS SCAN network for soil moisture monitoring. US Bureau of Reclamation BLM operates over 2,000 near-real time solar powered fire weather stations throughout the country. Near-real time data are available from several sources on the web, and archived data (as well as metadata and analysis tools) are available on-line at the Western Regional Climate Center website. BLM field offices participate in a several western State Drought Response Task Forces. Key issues are rangeland vegetation, stock tank evaporation, and streamflow responses to climate variability. In addition, BLM is participating on the U.S. Department of the Interiors Climate Change Task Force, which is addressing: 1) What role does/should USDI have in mitigating greenhouse gasses? and 2) What actions, practices and adaptations might Interior consider as the effects of climate change unfold? After reviewing these roles and practices, the Task Force will: 1) develop options for improving consistency in how we treat climate change in our policies, practices, planning, and related decisions; and 2) recommend improvements in how we take climate changes into consideration as we fulfill our responsibilities. The Task Force has three Committees: Legal and Policy; Land and Water Management; and Science. Participating agencies/offices include: Bureau of Indian Affairs; Bureau of Land Management; Bureau of Reclamation; Minerals Management Service; National Park Service; Office of Insular Affairs; Office of Surface Mining; U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service; and U.S. Geological Survey. BLM routinely utilizes fire weather information to plan for, and respond to wildfire events. Near-real time fire weather information enhances efficient mobilization of equipment, supplies and personnel, and has enhanced fire-fighter safety by anticipating changing weather conditions. In addition, historical hourly relative humidity and precipitation event information has been useful in evaluating potential visibility impacts from proposed activities through the NEPA process. BLM is very interested in utilizing GIS analysis of multiple time scale Standard Precipitation Indices to assist in rapid response to developing drought in remote rangeland situations. US Forest Service (Fujioka) The ignition potential of wildland fire is critically dependent on the moisture content of the vegetation that fuels the fire, hence on precipitation and relative humidity. After ignition, the spread of the fire is significantly affected by the ambient wind field and terrain. In Hawaii, we examined the effect of synoptic forcing, terrain, and the trade wind inversion on windstorms that form in the channels between the islands. We tested a mesoscale model coupled to a land surface model with a horizontal grid spacing at a kilometer scale to simulate strong downslope flow on the lee side of mountains and ridges. We also compared the accuracy of fuel moisture models, which estimate vegetation moisture content from weather variables. Developed statistical relationships between number and location of large fire events in the West and climate, drought, and fire index variables. Found that a model to predict large fire occurrence from monthly mean temperature and the Palmer drought severity index showed potential to discern areas of high probability of large fires from areas of low to moderate probability of large fires. The model was superior to predictions based on historical fire frequency. Wyoming State Climate Office and Water Resources Data System " Obtained a one-time $435,000 appropriation for the purchase of weather and climate monitoring equipment from the Wyoming State Legislature. We are currently working with several groups drawn from stakeholder communities and various state and federal agencies to determine how these funds can be used to address gaps in our monitoring networks. " Worked with the Governors Drought Task Force and State Department of Agriculture to produce a variety of products (e.g. press releases, informational brochures, etc.) on current drought conditions and water conservation. Co-organized a series of DTF press conferences and press contacts related to current drought conditions. " Worked with NWS and the National Park Service to address monitoring needs related to natural hazards (e.g. landslides and avalanches) in Yellowstone National Park. " Continued to offer ready access to a large suite of water and climate-related data via the World Wide Web. " Hosted a variety of seminars and meetings on the issues of drought and climate change in Wyoming and the West at large. " Continued active participation in the COCORAHS program. Recent efforts have been centered on increasing coverage in underserved areas, and involving agricultural producers in the program. " Initiated a new federally-funded project that examines the effects of drought and climate variability/change on a group of ecologically important pine species in the Northern Rocky Mountains. " Provided logistical and research support to several projects aimed at understanding the contribution of glacial runoff to late-season irrigation and fisheries in Wyoming. " Conducted and collaborated on a variety of research projects aimed at developing a long-term history of water resources and climate for agricultural areas within the state. " Worked with National Park Service to assess their climate-monitoring protocols and spatial coverage of climate monitoring sites. A key goal of this work is to help determine if the existing climate monitoring network meets the demands of natural resource management in this region. " COCORAHS participation also addresses a key problem within the state, namely a lack of precipitation monitoring sites in many areas. " Began creation of a series of ArcIMS interfaces that allow users to explore spatial data in an online-mapping framework. Initial efforts have aimed at mapping irrigated lands in the state, but the next round of work will include an IMS interface that links groundwater resources to climate. " We are continuing an extensive program aimed at developing new graphical displays and map-based interfaces that will allow farmers, ranchers, and natural resource managers easier access to weather and climate-related data. Instead of performing a text search or scrolling through pages of links to find what they need, users of the WRDS-SCO websites will soon click on a map of the state (or county or river basin, etc.) to gain access to relevant products. " We have begun a concerted effort to blend existing data products from multiple agencies in order to produce new, value-added products for agriculture and natural resource management. We are, for example, combining SWE data from NRCS SNOTEL with river stage data from USGS gauging stations in a series of graphics that will help everyone from regional water managers to small irrigators better understand the timing, magnitude, and duration of the spring runoff. " Continued work with the National Park Service to develop a framework for improving climate-data access and dissemination within its Inventory and Monitoring Program. " We are working with a number of researchers from the University of Wyoming and University of Arizona to develop animated maps showing changes in snowpack and seasonal precipitation over the western United States. Through additional collaborations with paleoclimatologists, we also hope to extend these dynamic mapping products to cover the past 500 yr or more. " Actively pursuing the development of map-based interfaces for improved data access. These interfaces are online geopgraphic information systems that link users to dynamic databases and a host of graphical products.

ARIZONA Crimmins, M. A., 2006: A Synoptic Climatological Analysis of Extreme Fire Weather Conditions Across the Southwest United States. International Journal of Climatology, 26, 1001-1016. NEW MEXICO CLIMATE CENTER PROGRAM Andales, A., J. Wang, T. W. Sammis, J. G. Mexal, L.J. Simmons, D. R. Miller, V. P. Gutschick., 2006: A model of pecan tree growth for the management of pruning and irrigation. Agricultural Water Management, 84, pp. 77-88. DeMouche, L., D. Bathke, and N. Doesken, Master Gardeners Role in Encouraging Water Conservation Using a Rain Gauge Network, Journal of Extension, in press. Kallestad, J.C., T. W. Sammis, J. G. Mexal, and J.White, 2006: Monitoring and Management of Pecan Orchard Irrigation: A Case Study. Hort Technology, 16(4), 1-7. A. Ruiz, A., T.W. Sammis, G.A. Picchioni, and J.G. Mexal, 2005: Irrigation scheduling protocol for treated industrial effluent in the Chihuahua desert. 2006 AWWA, 98(2):2 , pp.age 123-132. Andales, Allen. J. Wang. T. W. Sammis J. G. Mexal. L.J. Simmons, D. R. Miller, V. P. Gutschick. 2006: A model of pecan tree growth for the management of pruning and irrigation. Agricultural Water Management 84:77-88. DeMouche, L., D. Bathke, and N. Doesken, Master Gardeners Role in Encouraging Water Conservation Using a Rain Gauge Network, Journal of Extension, in press. Saucedo, T.W. Sammis, G.A. Picchioni, and J.G. Mexal, 2006: Wastewater application and water use of Larrea tridentate. Ag Water Management, 82(3), 343-353. Simmons, L.J., J. Wang, T. W. Sammis, and D. R. Miller, 2007: An evaluation of two inexpensive energy balance techniques for measuring water use in flood-irrigated pecans. (Carya illinoinensis). Ag Water Management, 88, 181-191. Wang, J., T. W. Sammis, A.A. Andales, L. J. Simmons, V. P. Gutschick, and D. R. Miller, 2007: Crop coefficients of open-canopy pecan orchards. Ag Water Management, 88, 253-262. OREGON CLIMATE SERVICE and PRISM Group) Valentine, Beth, George H. Taylor, Jeffrey K. Stone and Richard R. Halse, 2006. Equine cutaneous fungal granuloma: a study of 44 lesions from 34 horses. European Society of Veterinary Dermatology. 17; 266272. NATURAL RESOURCES CONSERVATION SERVICE New Weather Generator Technology (http://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/climate/gem.html) dataset and model (coding) has been released: ftp://ftp.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/downloads/climate/gem/GEM_6_States Adjusted wind data has been released: ftp://ftp.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/support/climate/wind_daily that contains the follow datasets: ftp://ftp.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/support/climate/wind_daily/readme_first.txt Provide weekly snowpack and drought monitor updates (http://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/water/drought/wdr.pl) Provide soil narrative climatology: (http://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/cgibin/soil-nar.pl) Provide Climate Conservation datasets by county (http://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/climate/climate-map.html) and as described at: (http://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/climate/wets_doc.html) In an effort to publicize the utility of PRISM, an article was released on NRCS This Week on-line newsletter: http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/news/thisweek/2006/122006/techtip11.20.06.html http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/news/thisweek/2006/061406/techtip06.14.06.html http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/news/thisweek/2006/070506/techtip07.05.06.html http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/news/thisweek/2006/071906/techtip07-19-06.html http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/news/thisweek/2006/080906/techtip08.09.06.html http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/news/thisweek/2006/083006/techtip08.30.06.html http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/news/thisweek/2006/101806/techtip101806.html US BUREAU OF RECLAMATION AgriMet: An Irrigation Water Management Tool Palmer, P.L., 2006, Proceedings, Ground Water and Surface Water Under Stress, USCID Conference, Boise Idaho, October 25-27, 2006. AgriMet websites: Pacific Northwest Region: http://www.usbr.gov/pn/agrimet Great Plains Region: http://www.usbr.gov/gp/agrimet/index.cfm US FOREST SERVICE (Fujioka) Chen, S.-C.; Preisler, H.; Benoit, J.; Fujioka, F. 2006. Projecting wildland fire severity using RSM simulations with a probability model. In: Proceedings, Conference on Weather Analysis and Forecasting, 2006 October 18-20, Taipei, Taiwan. Preisler, H.K.; Westerling, A.L. 2007. Statistical model for forecasting monthly large wildfire events in Western United States. J. Applied Meteorology and Climatology 46:1020-1030. Roads, J.; Tripp, P.; Juang, H.; Wang, J.; Chen, S.; Fujioka, F. 2007. ECPC/NCEP March 2007 seasonal fire danger forecasts. Experimental long-lead forecasts bulletin 16:1-7. Weise, D.R.; Fujioka, F.M.; Nelson, Jr., R.M. 2005. A comparison of three models of 1-h time lag fuel moisture in Hawaii. Ag. and For. Meteorol. 133:28-39. Yang, Y.; Chen, Y.-L.; Fujioka, F.M. 2005. Numerical simulations of the island-induced circulations over the island of Hawaii during HaRP. Mon. Wea. Rev. 133:3693-3713. UTAH CLIMATE OFFICE Malek, E., Davis. T., Martin, R.S., and Silva, P.J. 2006. Meteorological and environmental aspects of one of the worst national air pollution episodes (January, 2004) in Logan, Cache Valley, Utah, U.S.A. Atmos. Research. 79: 108-122. WESTERN REGION CLIMATE CENTER Kunkel, K.E., K.G. Hubbard, D. Easterling, D. Robinson, and K.T. Redmond (in press). Issues with identification of trends in 20th Century U.S. snowfall. Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology. Expected 2007. Redmond, K.T., (in revision, 2006). Historic climate variability in the Mojave Desert. In The Mojave Desert: Ecosystem Processes and Sustainability, eds. R.H. Webb, L.F. Fenstermaker, J.S. Heaton, D.L. Hughson, E.V. McDonald, and D.M. Miller, (submitted Dec 2005 to University of Arizona Press). Redmond, K.T. (In press). Climate variability and change as a backdrop for western resource management. Revision submitted June 2005. USDA Pacific Northwest Research Station, Bringing Climate into Natural Resource Management, Conference, May 28-30, 2005, Portland Oregon. Redmond, K.T. (In press). Evaporation and the Hydrologic Budget of Crater Lake, Oregon. Hydrobiologia, final version submitted September 2006, expected 2007. WYOMING WATER RESOURCES DATA SYSTEM & WYOMING STATE CLIMATE OFFICE Gray, S.T., L.J. Graumlich, and J.L. Betancourt. 2007. Annual precipitation in the Yellowstone National Park Region since A.D. 1173. Quaternary Research, 68:18-27. McCabe, G.J., J.L. Betancourt, S.T. Gray, M.A. Palecki, H.G. Hidalgo. 2007. Associations of multi-decadal sea-surface temperature variability with US drought. Quaternary International, in press.