2024 CASM End of Year Update
Hello CASM stakeholders,
It has been another great year for the Colorado Airborne Snow Measurement (CASM) group! As the program continues to grow and more areas have snow-free data coverage, ASO snow-on surveys are now possible for more than 50% of Colorado’s mountain headwater basins. There are two upcoming CASM stakeholder engagement events ahead of the 2025 runoff season:
On Wednesday, January 29th from 9-11:30am, at the 2025 Colorado Water Congress Annual Convention (https://www.cowatercongress.org/), the CASM team will be hosting a workshop on ASO data, stakeholder case studies, and program direction. If you are attending Water Congress, we’d love to see you there.
CASM will host a stakeholder meeting virtually on Thursday February 25th, 2024 at 1PM Mountain Time and will focus on 2025 activities and data products. A save the date for this meeting will be sent out by the Planning Team soon.
First, a Sincere “Thank You”
The CASM program could not exist without the generous support from the Colorado Water Conservation Board and more than 30 agencies around Colorado. There has been a significant increase in the program this year, both in terms of overall flight coverage and cost, but also the number of funding partners. Several federal and state agencies, along with dozens of water providers and conservancy districts have been able to fund $3.4M in flights and forecasts this year, with more than $1M of those funds coming from local water providers and conservancy districts.
Continued collection of ASO data (like in the Blue, Conejos and Dolores basins) continues to grow a more detailed historical record. Repeated snow surveys show snow accumulation and melt patterns across wet (2024) and dry (2022) years. These data have helped regional and municipal water providers make better decisions through improved streamflow forecasts, and earlier and more precise measurements of snowpack in their basins. As this record continues to grow, water providers across the state will benefit from the improved insight into their basins.
The plot below shows the growth of Colorado ASO snow survey and snow-free coverage, thanks to the hard work and collective funding efforts of all CASM stakeholders.
2025 Colorado ASO Activities:
CASM partners have been busy planning and working towards funding snow-on surveys for Water Year 2025. Below is a map of planned ASO snow-on surveys for 2025, with tentative commitments to fund all activities shown here. All basins shown will receive at least one survey in 2025, with some basins receiving 2 or 3 surveys. Snow surveys will be conducted between mid March and mid June 2025, depending on a number of factors including wintertime snowpack, stakeholder needs, and number of surveys funded.
2025 Pending ASO Snow Surveys
ASO snow surveys will be accompanied by iSnobal snowpack modeling and associated reports, as well as WRF-Hydro seasonal streamflow forecasts.
The CBRFC has committed to providing experimental streamflow forecasts that integrate ASO data for West Slope basins. These data are hosted on the ColoradoSnow.org landing page and a link will be provided for the CBRFC website when available.
The flight coordination committee will meet weekly in 2025 from February through June to plan flight logistics around weather, resources, and when flights are most useful for different stakeholders. These meetings are also a place to share and discuss ASO data as it comes out. Reach out to erik.skeie@state.co.us if you are interested in participating in this group.
The CASM Planning Team continues to work towards establishing long-term funding for the program.
2025 Data Products Delivery
More and more stakeholders are engaging with ASO and integrating the snowpack and streamflow products into their systems. These data include PDF reports, gridded snowpack products, and streamflow forecast data. These data are accessible through a variety of delivery methods:
CASM Website
All PDF reports for Colorado surveys will be hosted on the landing page of the CASM Website (ColoradoSnow.org) as they are delivered.
ASO Data Portal:
For all basins around the western US where ASO surveys are occurring, all reports from airborne surveys, snowpack modeling, and runoff forecasting, as well as gridded snowpack products are available at data.airbornesnowobservatories.com as they are generated. You must create a free account to access the data.
Email distribution lists by basin
For each basin, ASO maintains an email distribution list to send out data reports as they are generated. If you are not currently on one of those distribution lists, please reach out to kate.burchenal@airbornesnowobservatories.com to be added.
Data Access:
If your agency has a specific use case for improved snowpack, streamflow forecasts, albedo and other ASO data, we would love to work with you to improve your data integration. Please reach out to the ASO/CASM team so we can discuss your agency’s needs and potential solutions we can provide.
ASO Usage Case Studies
We have a new section of the CASM Website dedicated to case studies showing Colorado-specific applications of ASO data to water resources decision making:
We hope to keep adding to this page as more stakeholders apply ASO data to their operations and improve management for their groups. If you have details on a case study you’d like to share, please email us and we will get it added!
Here’s To Another Successful Program Year!
To all the CASM stakeholders – thank you so much for your continued support and involvement in this work and in CASM. We look forward to continuing to work together into 2025 and beyond. If you know of others who may be interested in joining the CASM stakeholder group, please have them reach out to us via email or our contact form on ColoradoSnow.org
Thank you and hope for snow,
The CASM Planning Team
