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<br />5 <br /> <br />missing data for those stations with less than 30 complete years of <br />data. An additional requirement was that the gages used to collect <br />precipitation needed to be of comparable accuracy to the 11WS standard 8" <br />non-recording raingage. <br />The National Weather Service (NWS) cooperative network of more than <br />200 climatological stations ended up being the backbone for this <br />analysis. NWS data are typically limited to populated areas and <br />mountai n valleys. Therefore, other data sources were re qu i red to he 1 p <br />describe mountain precipitation patterns. Snowpack measurements from <br />151 U, S. Department of Agriculture Soil Conservation Service (SCS) snow <br />courses were the primary high elevation data sources. Si nee snowpack <br />data are only seasonal, a procedure was developed to produce estimates <br />of average annual precipitation from spring snowpack readings. This <br />will be described in section IV. <br />Other data sets which were examined included U. S. Forest Service <br />storage gage data, limited standard raingage and storage gage data from <br />the U. S. Bureau of Land Management and the Bureau of Reclamation, and <br />miscellaneous precipitation records from a small number of university, <br />private, and local sources around the state. National Weather Service <br />cooperative weather stations with between 5 and 15 years of data were <br />included for supplemental information. <br />Several potential data sources were investigated but found to be <br />inadequate for inclusion in this analysis. Recording raingage data from <br />the NWS hourly precipitation network included too much missing data. It <br />underestimated actual precipitation by significant but inconsistent <br />amounts. A similar problem was noted with the U. S. Forest Service Fire <br />Weather network which is a summer-only network. <br />