Sources of seasonal water supply forecast uncertainty during snow drought in the Sierra Nevada

Abstract

Uncertainty attribution in water supply forecasting is crucial to improve forecast skill and increase confidence in seasonal water management planning. We develop a framework to quantify fractional forecast uncertainty and partition it between (1) snowpack quantification methods, (2) variability in post-forecast precipitation, and (3) runoff model errors. We demonstrate the uncertainty framework with statistical runoff models in the upper Tuolumne and Merced River basins (California, USA) using snow observations at two endmember spatial resolutions: a simple snow pillow index and full-catchment snow water equivalent (SWE) maps at 50 m resolution from the Airborne Snow Observatories. Bayesian forecast simulations demonstrate a nonlinear decrease in the skill of statistical water supply forecasts during warm snow droughts, when a low fraction of winter precipitation remains as SWE. Forecast skill similarly decreases during dry snow droughts, when winter precipitation is low. During a shift away from snow-dominance, the uncertainty of forecasts using snow pillow data increases about 1.9 times faster than analogous forecasts using full-catchment SWE maps in the study area. Replacing the snow pillow index with full-catchment SWE data reduces statistical forecast uncertainty by 39% on average across all tested climate conditions. Attributing water supply forecast uncertainty to reducible error sources reveals opportunities to improve forecast reliability in a warmer future climate.