Watershed memory amplified the Oroville rain-on-snow flood of February 2017.

ABSTRACT: Mountain snowpacks are transitioning to experience less snowfall and more rainfall as the climate warms, creating more persistent low- to no-snow conditions. This precipitation shift also invites more high-impact rain-on-snow (ROS) events, which have historically yielded many of the largest and most damaging floods in the western United States. One such sequence of events preceded the evacuation of 188,000 residents below the already-damaged Oroville Dam spillway in February 2017 in California's Sierra Nevada. Prior studies have suggested that snowmelt during ROS dramatically amplified reservoir inflows. However, we present evidence that snowmelt may have played a smaller role than previously documented (augmenting terrestrial water inputs by 21%). A series of hydrologic model experiments

SUBMITTER: Haleakala K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9832955 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature