Evaluating Nevada's Drought Monitoring
Network to
Improve Drought Early Warning and Response
PROJECT OVERVIEW
Principal Investigators: David Simeral, Steph McAfee,
Dan McEvoy
Key Partners: WRCC, DRI, UNR NV State Climate Office
Research Timeline: September, 2021 – August, 2023
Project Funding: NOAA National Integrated Drought
Information System (NIDIS)
RESEARCH PROFILE DESCRIPTION
Nevada is both the driest state in the US and one of the places most
frequently impacted by drought. The state's topography is complex, with
numerous north-south trending mountain ranges separated by valleys. It
is also not adequately monitored for drought, negatively impacting
drought detection and monitoring, particularly in rural areas. Key
recommendations from the 2015 Nevada Drought Forum included assessing
monitoring needs and filling gaps. The specific goals for this project
are to:
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Conduct an inventory of weather stations in Nevada and identify a
subset of stations that provide data specific to drought monitoring
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Identify major monitoring gaps across the state
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Prioritize areas for network augmentation
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Document remotely sensed and modeled products already being used by
US Drought Monitor authors
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Work with key local stakeholders (e.g., NWS, BLM, University of
Nevada, Reno Extension) to make recommendations for
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network development
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research priorities related to evaluating remotely sensed and
modeled products used for drought monitoring
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Make the inventory and gap analysis accessible so that users can
access station metadata and links to recognized monitoring network
information and produce a report documenting methods and findings
Key figures from the final report are shown below. The final report
can be accessed here.
KEY FIGURES FROM REPORT
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Figure 1:
Map of weather/climate station networks suitable for drought
monitoring in Nevada
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Figure 2:
Map of weather stations relative to county boundaries
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Figure 3:
Maps and counts of weather stations that measure both liquid and
frozen precipitation and those that do not
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Figure 4:
Map of weather stations relative to grazing area boundaries
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Figure 5:
Map of Nevada weather stations relative to the Köppen climate types
represented in the state
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Figure 6:
Map of weather station elevation against topography
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Figure 7:
Map of weather stations relative to terrain aspect
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Figure 8:
Weather station counts for each 62-mile x 62-mile grid box across
Nevada
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Figure 9:
Map of station clusters developed using density based clustering and
defined distance methods
SUMMARIZED PROJECT CONCLUSIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS
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Low density of weather stations across Nevada relative to other parts
of the country
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Station density is relatively high in the two urban centers (Las
Vegas, Reno-Sparks)
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Although 16 weather station networks were identified, only a handful
are commonly used in drought monitoring, including NWS COOP, SNOTEL,
RAWS, ASOS/AWOS, and CoCoRaHS
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Challenges in using other networks for drought monitoring include poor
data access, data not available in near real-time, data not available
in user-friendly formats, short periods of record (limit the
calculation of climatologies and anomalies), and lack of variables
that pertain to drought
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Based on analysis from this project and input from key stakeholders
emphasize the need for more spatially and elevationally-distributed
precipitation gages that measure frozen precipitation
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Recommendations to address the lack of stations that measure frozen
precipitation include augmentation of a targeted RAWS stations by
adding weighing-type gages
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More soil moisture measurements are needed across the state
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Data holes with few or no weather stations included northern Nye,
southern Lincoln and Landers counties, northern Washoe, northwestern
Humboldt, and Esmerelda and Mineral counties
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Mid-level elevation zones (6000-8000 feet) were identified as target
areas for future weather stations as much of the rangeland and forage
vegetation falls into this elevation band in northern Nevada
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Remote sensed and gridded data products used to assess drought in
Nevada include radar-based precipitation estimates, modeled soil
moisture, evapotranspiration, SWE, and vegetation greenness (NDVI);
field campaigns are recommended to provide on-the-ground validation
of these products