edu.ucar.opensky::articles:26720 UCAR/NCAR - Library OpenSky Support PO Box 3000 Boulder CO 80307-3000 opensky@ucar.edu http://opensky.ucar.edu/ homepage pointOfContact 2025-12-24T19:22:58.098271 ISO 19115-2 Geographic Information - Metadata - Part 2: Extensions for Imagery and Gridded Data ISO 19115-2:2009(E) https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d73f4tqd The role of snowmelt temporal pattern in flood estimation for a small snow-dominated basin in the Sierra Nevada 2023-10-01T00:00:00Z publication https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d73f4tqd https://doi.org/10.1029/2023WR034496 Yan, H. author Sun, N. author Wigmosta, M. S. author Duan, Z. author Gutmann, Ethan D. author Kruyt, Albertus author Arnold, J. R. author UCAR/NCAR - Library publisher Prior research confirmed the substantial bias from using precipitation-based intensity-duration-frequency curves (PREC-IDF) in design flood estimates and proposed next-generation IDF curves (NG-IDF) that represent both rainfall and snow processes in runoff generation. This study improves the NG-IDF technology for a snow-dominated test basin in the Sierra Nevada. A well-validated physics-based hydrologic model, the Distributed Hydrology Soil Vegetation Model (DHSVM), is used to continuously simulate snowmelt and streamflow that are used as benchmark data sets to systematically assess the NG-IDF technology. We find that, for the studied small snow-dominated basin, the use of standard rainfall hyetographs in the NG-IDF technology leads to substantial underestimation of design floods. Thus, we propose probabilistic hyetographs that can represent unique patterns of events with different underlying mechanisms. For the test basin where flooding events are generated entirely by snowmelt, we develop a hyetograph that characterizes snowmelt temporal patterns, which greatly improves the performance of NG-IDF technology in design flood estimates. In contrast to the standard rainfall hyetographs characterized by a symmetrically peaked, bell-shaped curve, the snowmelt hyetograph displays a more rapid rise (i.e., greater intensity) and a distinct diurnal pattern influenced by solar energy input. The results also show that the uncertainty of hyetography plays an important role in design flood estimation and can have important implications for future flood projections. UCAR/NCAR - Library OpenSky Support PO Box 3000 Boulder CO 80307-3000 opensky@ucar.edu http://opensky.ucar.edu/ homepage pointOfContact PDF Text theme Resource Type 2016-01-01T00:00:00Z publication Copyright author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. None eng geoscientificInformation