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For earlier materials see Table of Contents

Nov 19th

Storm coming ---

Or maybe just a Gale

 

The Env Canada River hydrometric site may prove very useful for understanding ‘climate’ and rainfall at Skeena Watershed level

 

Choose BC then Skeena River at Usk and ‘discharge’ rather than water level

 

In upper corner choose ‘historic’ for 1928-2006 data

 

 

Modelling Climate Change

This was from the DFO Climate Change PPT--- but it led to questions about the Skeena River --- note the lower image is a typical year snow melt --- the upper is if/ when most the precipitation falls as rain – not snow during year

 

I’ll hypothesize from this that the ‘shape’ of the yearly discharge is saying something about that years ‘climate’ --- temperature etc

 

 

Skeena River data available on WWW --- both current and ‘historical’ data online

Contrast 2008 with 2007 for starters --- in 2008 the peak discharge (heavy blue line) was in June and the discharge most the year was ‘normal’ (mean = dashed line)

The red arrow points to a ‘record’ discharge in late August

 

The 2007 year was missing data (heavy blue line) but has several ‘records’ (left red arrow) during ‘spring runoff maximum’

The second red arrow shows there as a period of ‘record’ discharges during December

 

Using the historical data – toggling between daily and monthly plot

Note that 2006 discharge was almost ‘average’ thru 1st half year then dropped off to almost record minimum discharges through 2nd half year (presumably a dry fall season in Skeena land – but would have to go back to historical rainfall records to see how much so

 

Compare with 2006 above --- earlier peak in 2005

In 2005 the snow melt was presumably earlier
 – peaking in May not June

El Nino year -----left is by month and below is by day

 

On monthly basis – ‘normal’ until mid July --- suggest rainfall records upriver of Usk would be thus most useful for ‘normal’ (including snow depths etc)

2003 was most ‘normal’ of recent times
note the record discharge in late October though

 

Above average Monthly discharge in June --

By ‘month’ a ‘normal timing’ but higher discharge
But using the daily data – see discharge peaked later (mid June) than in a ‘normal’ year

 

1998 vs 1997

Of the 2 years 1998 looks more atypical

 

Showing record minimum for June and July and into August

I will come back to this tomorrow --- and links to my earlier 2005-2007 SST etc data

 

 

Records go back to 1928

Presumably data did not start until mid May

But 1928 was a ‘normal’ year until after September – and then almost continuous ‘record’ low discharge --- of course it could have been a cold fall – early winter --- or maybe not so many clear cuts as later (thus soils retaining moisture better)

Created by LG on 19/11/2008

Last updated on Thursday, November 20, 2008