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SPDSS Memorandum <br />Final <br />To: Doug Stenzel, Ray Alvarado, Ray Bennett <br />From: LRE - Beorn Courtney and Kara Sobieski <br />Subject: Task 53.1 -Daily Climate Data Collection for HydroBase <br />Date: December 21, 2004 (Revised January 25, 2006) <br />Introduction <br />The ASCE Standardized Evapotranspiration method is being added to the SPDSS and requires <br />daily climate data including minimum and maximum temperature, precipitation, wind speed, <br />solar radiation, and vapor pressure. These data are generally available from sources other than <br />the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) and are not currently stored in <br />HydroBase for Division 1. <br />This memorandum presents the general approach and results for the following Task 53 subtask <br />^ Collect/digitize daily data for temperature, precipitation, wind speed, solar radiation, <br />and vapor pressure from approximately 20 existing data sources including CoAgMet and <br />NCWCD climate stations. <br />Daily data were collected throughout the South Platte, North Platte, and Laramie River basins <br />(SPDSS study area) for the SPDSS study period from 1950 through the most current year <br />available (2003). The downloaded data files are included with this memorandum and stepwise <br />instructions are provided so that the data collection process can be replicated. <br />Evaporation data collection is also scoped under Task 53 and, like the daily climate data, is not <br />generally available from NOAA climate stations. Based on interviews with reservoir owners and <br />operators, pan evaporation is not measured throughout the SPDSS study area. With permission <br />from Denver Water and Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District (NCWCD), the <br />evaporation rate schedules developed by these entities for their respective system models will be <br />used in the SPDSS modeling efforts. See the SPDSS "Task 53.3 -Assign Key Climate <br />Information to Irrigated Acreage and Reservoirs" memo for additional information. <br />Approach and Results <br />Daily climate data were collected from the Colorado Agricultural Meteorological Network <br />(CoAgMet) and the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District (NCWCD). <br />CoAgMet Data <br />The Colorado Climate Center (CCC) at Colorado State University (CSU) is the organization <br />responsible for CoAgMet, which involves the collection and quality assessment of daily climate <br />