Assessing the factors governing the ability to predict late-spring flooding in cold-region mountain basins

Vionnet, Vincent; Fortin, Vincent; Gaborit, Etienne; Roy, Guy; Abrahamowicz, Maria; Gasset, Nicolas; Pomeroy, John W.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-2141-2020

Articles | Volume 24, issue 4

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-2141-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

Understanding and predicting Earth system and hydrological...

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-2141-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 24, issue 4

Research article

|

30 Apr 2020

Research article |

| 30 Apr 2020

Assessing the factors governing the ability to predict late-spring flooding in cold-region mountain basins

Vincent Vionnet, Vincent Fortin, Etienne Gaborit, Guy Roy, Maria Abrahamowicz, Nicolas Gasset, and John W. Pomeroy

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-2141-2020-supplement

Data sets

A multi-scale meteorological dataset of the June 2013 flood in Southern Alberta, Canada Vionnet, V., Fortin, V., Gaborit, E., Roy, G., Abrahamowicz, M., Gasset, N., & Pomeroy, J. W https://doi.org/10.20383/101.0130

Short summary

The 2013 Alberta flood in Canada was typical of late-spring floods in mountain basins combining intense precipitation with rapid melting of late-lying snowpack. Hydrological simulations of this event are mainly influenced by (i) the spatial resolution of the atmospheric forcing due to the best estimate of precipitation at the kilometer scale and changes in turbulent fluxes contributing to snowmelt and (ii) uncertainties in initial snow conditions at high elevations. Soil texture has less impact.