HR: 1340h
AN: H33B-1386    [Abstracts]
TI: Relationship Between Winter Snowfall and Summer Droughts in the Northern Great Plains of North America
AU: * Quiring, S M
EM: squiring@geog.tamu.edu
AF: Texas A&M University, Department of Geography, College Station, TX 77843 United States
AU: Kluver, D B
EM: dbscott@udel.edu
AF: University of Delaware, Department of Geography, Newark, DE 19716 United States
AB: The relationships between snowfall/snow cover and growing-season drought conditions are not, generally speaking, well understood. While numerous studies have demonstrated that Eurasian snow cover/snow depth affects the strength of the Indian/Asian summer monsoon, a connection between North American snow and drought has not been definitively established. The impact of fall/winter/spring snowfall on growing-season droughts were examined using a one-degree grid spanning the northern Great Plains of North America (40° to 54° N; 95° to 113° W). Based on data from 1929 to 1999, the results suggest that the relationship between snowfall and growing-season drought is non-linear. It appears that the snowfall anomalies must exceed some minimum threshold before they have a significant impact on atmospheric circulation and precipitation during the following summer. The results also suggest that snowfall anomalies during the late winter/spring are more important for determining summer moisture conditions than snowfall anomalies during the early winter.
UR: http://geog.tamu.edu/~squiring/
DE: 1812 Drought
DE: 1833 Hydroclimatology
DE: 1863 Snow and ice (0736, 0738, 0776, 1827)
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005