Yosemite Hydroclimate Network

Distributed Stream and Atmospheric Data for the Tuolumne River Watershed and Surroundings

These data are offered without warranty. Use at your own risk. We ask that you send an e-mail to Jessica Lundquist at jdlund@uw.edu if you decide to use the data. Also, please let Dr. Lundquist know if anything looks odd, as we are continuously trying to improve the data quality control.

This paper was published as a data paper at Water Resources Research, accepted online September 2016. Authors include Jessica D. Lundquist, James W. Roche, Harrison Forrester, Courtney Moore, Eric Keenan, Gwyneth Perry, Nicoleta Cristea, Brian Henn, Karl Lapo, Bruce McGurk, Daniel R. Cayan, and Michael D. Dettinger

Abstract

Regions of complex topography and remote wilderness terrain have spatially-varying patterns of temperature and streamflow, but due to inherent difficulties of access, are often very poorly sampled. Here we present a dataset of distributed stream stage, streamflow, stream temperature, barometric pressure, and air temperature from the Tuolumne River Watershed in Yosemite National Park, Sierra Nevada, California, U.S.A. for water years 2002 to 2015, as well as a quality-controlled hourly meteorological forcing time series for use in hydrologic modeling. We also provide snow data and daily inflow to the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir for 1970 to 2015. This paper describes data collected using low-visibility and low-impact installations for wilderness locations and can be used alone or as a critical supplement to ancillary datasets collected by cooperating agencies, referenced herein. This dataset provides a unique opportunity to understand spatial patterns and scaling of hydroclimatic processes in complex terrain and can be used to evaluate downscaling techniques or distributed modeling. The paper also provides an example methodology and lessons learned in conducting hydroclimatic monitoring in remote wilderness.

Citation: Lundquist, J. D., Roche, J. W., Forrester, H., Moore, C., Keenan, E., Perry, G., Cristea, N., Henn, B., Lapo, K., McGurk, B., Cayan, D. R. and Dettinger, M. D. (2016), Yosemite hydroclimate network: Distributed stream and atmospheric data for the Tuolumne River watershed and surroundings. Water Resour. Res., Accepted Author Manuscript. doi:10.1002/2016WR019261

Supplemental Material

Guide to all of the sites, methodology, data processing, and rating curve development associated with this data.

Processed Data for Forcing and Evaluating a Hydrologic Model

Dana Meadows forcing dataset used in SUMMA modeling tests (Cristea et al., 2020, submitted)

Streamflow:

  • Best estimate of half-hourly discharge for 6 streams in the Upper Tuolumne Watershed for water years 2002 to 2015. In zipped ascii format (separated by commas).

  • README file describing the locations and processing of the above data.

    • Unimpaired Inflow:

  • Estimated daily unimpaired flow data for Hetch Hetchy reservoir for water years 1970 to 2015. In ascii format (separated by commas).

  • README file describing the location, accuracy, and processing of the above data.

    • Snow Water Equivalent:

  • Tuolumne and Dana manual snow course measurements of snow water equivalent for water years 1970 to 2015, as well as daily snow pillow measurements of SWE for both locations for water years 1980 to 2015. In ascii format (separated by commas).

  • README file describing the location, accuracy, and processing of the above data.

    • Atmospheric Data for Forcing a Hydrologic or Snow Model:

  • Hourly values of air temperature, wind speed, relative humidity, shortwave irradiance, longwave irradiance, and precipitation for water years 2003 to 2015 in zipped ascii format (separated by commas). Time stamps are provided in both UTC and PST.

  • README file describing the locations, gap-filling methods, and processing of the data above.


    • Detailed Stream Data with 95% Confidence Intervals and Raw Data Files

    Q01:

  • Raw and corrected stage data, raw stream temperature data, and estimated discharge data for Lyell Fork of the Tuolumne River below Maclure Creek for water years 2005 to 2015. In zipped ascii format (separated by commas).

  • README file describing the location, accuracy, and processing of the above data.

  • Manual field measurements at Lyell Fork below Maclure of stage (or tapedown), water temperature, conductivity, and discharge, used to create the rating curves in the above files.

    • Q02:

  • Raw and corrected stage data, raw stream temperature data, and estimated discharge data for Lyell Fork of the Tuolumne River above and below Twin Bridges for water years 2002 to 2015. In zipped ascii format (separated by commas).

  • README file describing the location, accuracy, and processing of the above data.

  • Manual field measurements at Lyell Fork Twin Bridges of stage, water temperature, and discharge, used to create the rating curves in the above files.

  • Manual survey of the cross-section near the instrument located downstream of the Lyell Fork at Twin Bridges.

  • Manual survey of the cross-section near the instrument located upstream of the Lyell Fork at Twin Bridges.

    • Q03:

  • Raw and corrected stage data, raw stream temperature data, and estimated discharge data for Dana Fork of the Tuolumne River near the Tuolumne Lodge for water years 2002 to 2006. In zipped ascii format (separated by commas).

  • README file describing the location, accuracy, and processing of the above data.

  • Manual field measurements at Dana Fork near the Tuolumne Lodge of stage, water temperature, and discharge, used to create the rating curves in the above files.

  • Manual survey of the cross-section near the instrument located near the lodge on the Dana Fork.

    • Q04:

  • Raw and corrected stage data, raw stream temperature data, and estimated discharge data for Dana Fork of the Tuolumne River near Bug Camp for water years 2006 to 2015. In zipped ascii format (separated by commas).

  • README file describing the location, accuracy, and processing of the above data.

  • Manual field measurements at Dana Fork near Bug Camp of stage, water temperature, and discharge, used to create the rating curves in the above files.

  • Manual survey of the cross-section near the instrument located near Bug Camp on the Dana Fork.

    • Q05:

  • Raw and corrected stage data, raw stream temperature data, and estimated discharge data for Tuolumne River at Highway 120 for water years 2002 to 2015, combining instruments from both above and below the culvert. In zipped ascii format (separated by commas).

  • README file describing the location, accuracy, and processing of the above data.

  • Manual field measurements of Tuolumne River at Highway 120 stage and discharge, used to create the rating curves in the above files.

  • Manual survey of the cross-section near the instrument located in the Tuolumne River at Highway 120.

    • Q06:

  • Raw and corrected stage data, raw stream temperature data, and estimated discharge data for Delaney Creek where it enters Tuolumne Meadows for water years 2008 to 2015. In zipped ascii format (separated by commas).

  • README file describing the location, accuracy, and processing of the above data.

  • Manual field measurements of Delaney Creek stage and discharge, used to create the rating curves in the above files.

  • Manual survey of the cross-section near the instrument located in Delaney Creek in Tuolumne Meadows.

    • Q07:

  • Raw and corrected stage data, raw stream temperature data, and estimated discharge data for Budd Creek where it enters Tuolumne Meadows for water years 2002 to 2015. In zipped ascii format (separated by commas).

  • README file describing the location, accuracy, and processing of the above data.

  • Manual field measurements of Budd Creek stage and discharge, used to create the rating curves in the above files.

    • Distributed Air Temperature Data for 2002 to 2005

    Site Background and Analysis

  • Daily temperature data for 62 stations detailed in Lundquist and Cayan, 2007, see Fig. 1 and Table 1.

  • README file describing the accuracy and processing of the above data.

  • Site information including latitude, longitude, and elevation for the 62 stations.

    • Temperature Data

  • Site information including latitude, longitude, and elevation for the 62 stations.

  • Matrix of daily mean temperatures (calculated from 0 to 23 local time) for 62 sites detailed above.

  • Matrix of daily minimum temperatures (calculated from 0 to 23 local time) for 62 sites detailed above.

  • Matrix of daily maximum temperatures (calculated from 0 to 23 local time) for 62 sites detailed above.


    • Barometric Pressure Data (Used to Process Stream Data)

    Data

  • Values of relative barometric pressure in cm of water for water years 2002 to 2015 in zipped ascii format (separated by commas).

  • Same as above but in .mat format

    • Data Notes

  • README file describing the location, accuracy, and processing of the data above.

  • Note that the time stamp for these is in UTC, which is 7 hours ahead of summer daylight savings time in Tuolumne. The time step varies, depending on the instrument used.