Snow Survey and Water Supply Forecasting Program

Learn more about the Interactive Map

Use the Interactive Map

The Snow and Water Interactive Map displays both current and historic hydrometeorological data in an easy-to-use, visual interface. The information on the map comes from many sources. Natural Resources Conservation Service snowpack and precipitation data are derived from manually-collected snow courses and automated Snow Telemetry (SNOTEL) and Soil Climate Analysis Network (SCAN) stations. Other data sources include precipitation, streamflow, and reservoir data from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (BoR), the Applied Climate Information System (ACIS), the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), and other hydrometeorological monitoring entities.

Open SNOTEL Update Report

Open the User Assistance Guide

Open list of predefined reports for Snow and Climate Monitoring

The National Water and Climate Center SNOTEL Update Report is an analysis utility that produces reports with daily Snow Telemetry (SNOTEL) snow water equivalent (SWE) and precipitation values for 24 different geographic areas. You can request reports in seven different display formats, allowing comparisons of the daily data against either the daily 30-Year Median or Average, the current or historical month-to-date values, the median/average monthly or annual totals, or against data from a different year. You can also select any date for a report.

Open Report Generator to create custom reports from multiple data sources.

Read the User Guide for assistance.

Report Generator uses long-term snowpack, precipitation, reservoir, streamflow, and soils data from a variety of quality-controlled sources to create reports.

Users can choose from predefined templates or build custom reports.

Data from tabular reports may be exported to different formats, including comma-separated value (CSV) files. Charts can be saved to graphics formats, such as JPG and PNG.

Open the NWCC Seasonal Volume Forecast Plots

Learn more about Water Supply Forecasting at NRCS

Access Predefined Report links for the Water Supply Forecast tool

Open the Water Supply Forecast Charts User Guide

Most of the western United States has a dry climate, where agriculture depends on irrigation. The water supply for irrigation largely comes from rivers and creeks, whose streamflow originates from the springtime melting of winter snow.

The NRCS uses statistical models to produce water supply forecasts. These are equations that express a fitted mathematical relationship (usually linear) between several predictor variables and the target seasonal streamflow volume. Predictor variables are primarily snow water equivalent at selected measurement sites but can also include precipitation, antecedent streamflow, and a few other miscellaneous quantities.

Open the AWDB RESTful Webservice Test Tool

Open the AWDB SOAP Webservice Test Tool

Access the AWDB Web Service User Guide

The National Water and Climate Center maintains a large database of soil, water, and climate data known as AWDB (air and water database). This database includes data from NWCC’s extensive automated data collection system of snowpack and related climate data called SNOTEL (for SNOw TELemetry), its Soil Climate Analysis Network (SCAN) stations, as well as data from snow courses, streamflow stations, reservoirs, climate indices, National Weather Service COOP stations, 30-year normals, water supply forecasts, and more. All of this data can be accessed publicly through the AWDB Web Service.

The AWDB SOAP Webservice Test Tool lets users run any methods of the Web Service, set SOAP requests, SOAP responses, and the actual data returned. This is a powerful tool that allows users to look at data to test the Web Service to ensure it returns what is wanted before implementing the calls in code.

The AWDB RESTful Webservice Test Tool gives users access to machine-readable data from AWDB using a REST protocol.

Reports

• Monthly Reservoir Update Report
• Basin Data Reports - Select "Reservoir" as report type
• California Current Reservoir Storage Summary - California Dept. of Water Resources

Maps

• Percent of 1991-2020 Median

Graphs

Western U.S. Reservoir Storage Bar Graph and Data Reports (Preliminary posted on 5th working day, final on 10th working day each month)

• Current Graph
• Data report for current graph

30-Year Medians and Averages

• Reservoir 30-Year Medians and Averages (1991-2020) Effective Oct. 1, 2021

Open Snow and Climate Monitoring Predefined Reports and Maps