Plymouth State University Receives $192,000 Federal Grant to Study Seasonal Snowpack Trends

Plymouth State University Receives $192,000 Federal Grant to Study Seasonal Snowpack Trends

Project will broaden understanding of climate change impacts in northern New England and create first ever Snow Drought Index

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Friday, December 13, 2024

Water-related disasters, such as the historic flooding that destroyed roads, infrastructure and property in northern New Hampshire in December 2023, continue to trend upward as a result of global warming. These increasing disasters place immense financial stress on the already-strained budgets of individuals, municipalities, states and the federal government. The state of the winter snowpack - critical to the economy and lifestyles of northern New England - plays a significant role in the probability that these disasters will occur.

Plymouth State University has received a $192,000 grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to analyze nearly a century's worth of snowpack data from across the Northeast to develop a Snow Drought Index, the first of its kind in the nation. The Index will look at measurements of depth and snow water equivalent and rank them by severity of deviation from a climatological baseline, improving our understanding of climate change's relationship with winter related disasters such as the severe flooding in Plymouth and Holderness, New Hampshire, in December 2023.

With a two-year, $192,000 grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration(NOAA), researchers at the Judd Gregg Meteorology Institute at Plymouth State University (PSU) will comb through nearly a century's worth of snowpack data from across the Northeast to develop a Snow Drought Index and other tools to be used by NOAA, the National Weather Service (NWS), the National Integrated Drought Information System and others to better understand the changes in winter precipitation and persistence and to help improve the protection of life, property and the ecosystems of the Northeast.

"Various organizations have been measuring the region's snowpack since the 1930s, but until now we have never had an observational baseline for a historical perspective of present-day snowpack conditions, an understanding of how the seasonal snowpack has evolved with climate change, nor developed a model for assessing snow drought conditions," says PSU Research Associate Professor Eric Kelsey, Ph.D. "With this grant, we'll be able to analyze two important variables - snowpack depth and snow water equivalent (the amount of water in the snowpack) - to produce standardized climate data that NOAA, NWS and others can use in their modeling and forecasts."

The Snow Drought Index, the first of its kind in the nation, will be similar to NOAA's existing Drought Index. It will look at measurements of depth and snow water equivalent in the Northeast and rank them by severity of deviation from a climatological baseline.

The groundwork for this grant has been underway at PSU for several years. Graduate and undergraduate students have performed initial work on existing New Hampshire and New York snow data, verifying metadata and performing quality control. A graduate student hired under the grant will work on the project full-time.

PSU will collaborate with other institutions, including the Northeast Regional Climate Center at Cornell University, which oversees the grant, and the National Weather Service.

The grant timeline calls for the project to be completed by April 2026.

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