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Water Project Construction Program - Project Data Non-Reimbursable Investment Applicant: Colorado Snow and Avalanche Studies (CSAS) Project Name: Colorado Dust on Snow Program (CODOS) Project Type : Studies and monitoring Drainage Basin: County: Statewide Statewide Total Project Cost Type of Grantee : $140,170 : Non-Profit: 501(c)(3) CWCB Non-Reimbursable Inv.: Funding Source $30,000 : CWCB Const. Fund This request through CSAS seeks to develop a broa d-based dust on snow program serving the full spectrum of Colorado’s snowmelt stakeholders with useful information. The proposed work includes: 1) enhancing the scope and frequency of dust on snow monitoring, 2) enhancing the advisories issued to stakeholde rs to address impacts on snowmelt timing and rates, with additional basin by basin detail, and 3) conducting research activities that enhance the CODOS program for future snowmelt forecasts. The CDOS program can assist with snowmelt forecasting efforts to benefit flood preparedness activi ties and water supply management. For the past several years, dust from the Colorado Plateau has been widely observed within and on the snowpack surface at locations throughout Colorado. Yet, until Spring of 2007, snowmelt forecasting programs and Colorado water managers had neither received data regarding the presence/absence of dust in mountain snowpacks nor made any attempt to explicitly estimate the effects of dust-on-snow on snowmelt timing, intensity, or duration. Integrating the ‘dust f actor’ into the Colorado water community’s understanding of snowmelt processes is providing new insights into runoff patterns. Significant investments have already been made in dust-on-snow research and to kick-start the pilot program by applying that research to the snowmelt forecasting challenges facing Colorado water managers. Funding partners so far have in cluded the National Science Foundation, water conservation and water conserva ncy districts, and the Wester n Water Assessment/NOAA. CSAS has performed field work and data collection an d produced/distributed numerous dust updates at appropriate intervals throughout Water Year ’08. The updates provide a warning about anticip ated or actual dust deposition events. CSAS is also undertaking the development of additional monitoring infrastructure and continues investigations and modeling fo r the interactions of dust-on- snow, snowpack properties, weather, terrain, and other variables to analyze cumulative impacts to snowmelt rates and Snow All Gone (SAG) dates. Photo Right: The transformation of the snowcover from a reflective, white surface into a solar energ y absorbing 'brown' surface is clearly evident in this view of the lower portion of the Senator Beck Study Plot instrument tower, taken on the morning of May 24, 2006. Seven separate dust-on-snow events have become fully exposed, merging into a single layer at the snowpack surface, including the February 15, 2006 dust layer that factored so heavily in the early and rapid snowmelt observed in wat ersheds throughout Colorado that spring.