Phillip Harder
@harder_water
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Obsessed with ag-water interactions where it’s cold and dry. Research Director & Hydrological Scientist @SWATMAPS All views are my own
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Joined June 2018
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So things are hot🥵and dry🏜️and crops are in 📉 out here on the Canadian Prairies and you may wonder how this stacks up with other droughts we've had. If you'll indulge me I'll break this down a bit with some data from Saskatoon.
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Much has been written about the transition from summer fallow to zero-till on the Canadian Prairies and how much of a game changer its been for ag productivity. But how much have you heard about how this land use change has influenced weather and climate in the region?🧵1/21
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After 16 years of being involved with Usask hydrology research in various capacities I’m excited to share that I’m shifting gears! Over the next couple weeks I will be transitioning to the role of Research Director & Hydrological Scientist
@SWATMaps
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Glaciers are melting!
#Drone
surveying of Peyto Glacier with
#lidar
#thermal
and
#multispectral
sensors is our contribution to understanding how fast it is melting and what that means for the headwaters.
@CentreForHydro
@GWFutures
@usask_water
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How much of the snow will infiltrate or runoff during snowmelt this year? The Canadian Prairies have a decent snowpack atm and coming out of
#drought21
this is especially relevant. Primarily depends on fall soil moisture, size of snowpack, and mid-winter melts🧵Buckle up... 1/12
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Before you feel the need to complain about the precip phase a fun fact is that snow at this time of year is an effective mechanism to move nitrogen from the ait to
the soil. On the order of 1-2lbs/acre per inch of snow so still need a bit of fertilizer
#water
#snow
#westcdnag
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Snowmelt has big implications for prairie ag. Fast melt = runoff to dugouts/flooding and lose of soil recharge potential and vice versa. If you look close melt is very different across the landscape-so what is going on? Come on down this rabbit hole if you dare🧵1/
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In dryland farming there is no way we can change the weather to give us more precipitation. But we can manage the snow that we do get with stubble management. In short, to maximize 2022 growth potential you need to leave as much standing stubble as possible. For the why see 👇1/6
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To help appreciate the current snow situation in Western Canada the Canadian Cryosphere Watch () is a great data resource for the regional scale. It's pretty indicative of how little snow there is currently (left) vs normal (right)
@polardata
#WestCdnAg
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#Drought21
left much of the prairies with few moisture reserves so snowmelt is critical this year. Determining recharge potential means knowing the amount of snow on the land. See👇to learn how you too can measure snow water equivalent to📉water uncertainty with
#plant22
looming
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Kids needed some fresh air and my hydrology brain needed some numbers = snow pit tutorial. Key info is we have 64 mm of snow water equivalent near Rosthern, SK at the moment. It’s a bit of a weird snowpack though… 🧵
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So how much snow came in this last dump? Clearly it is variable across the region but the only reliable way to understand is to go out and do a snow survey. I measured 50mm of water equivalent in my forage field with an average density of 17%
#westcdnag
#snow
#water
1/6
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When will the snow melt is a big question for many. There’s alot of snow out there and consistently cold temps (at least near Saskatoon) means not much melt has happened yet. Like most things hydrology related this year things are interesting🧵1/14
#KnowYourSnow
#WestCdnAg
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Northern SK is something else! Still remember how to paddle it seems. Weather cooperated so 90km and 17 portages over 4 days was apparently possible.
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I can’t be the only
#hydrologist
to watch
#Frozen2
and get all excited about the theme of water having memory. Could explore this in so many ways in
#Frozen3
:
#Hurst
exponent, temporal autocorrelation, storage, the solid phase of the whole
#cryosphere
...
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Another year and another retreat of Peyto Glacier tongue. It’s not a gradual steady retreat but full of ice cave collapses, ice berg calving, debris flows onto ice, and chunks disconnecting.
@GWFutures
@CentreForHydro
@usask_water
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Had the opportunity to briefly dig into some snow near Consort AB yesterday (thanks for the invite
@GouldRanching
!) We checked out adjacent lentil and stripped wheat stubble fields and found some impressive differences
#WestCdnAg
#KnowYourSnow
🧵1/8
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To put the Ukrainian dam breach into a prairie context the reservoir that is now draining has on the order of twice the volume of Lake Diefenbaker storage and twice the estimated volume of the 1997 Red River flood....
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So far a dynamic water year on the prairies. Once again a situation of have’s and have nots for precip. Water input is critical to grow things but at the same time I’ve been thinking a lot about the invisible part of the water cycle-evapotranspiration🧵1/12
#WestCdnAg
#drought23
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It may look like snow but this is really just frost on bare soil. In the absence of a snow cover there are intense temperature/humidity gradients that are moving soil water to the surface as vapor where it’s refreezing and then sublimating. No snow = drier soils
#westcdnag
#water
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What a difference in the runoff situation between 2023 and this year! Very similar total precipitation amounts between October and for both winters yet significant runoff this spring despite a smaller snowpack at the start of melt this year vs 2023
#westcdnag
#water
#snow
🧵 1/5
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So pumped to witness Dr
@cmarsh_hydro
successfully defend his PhD on multi-scale cold region hydrological modelling. Much more to come from this brain in the future!
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🚨We're hiring a Canmore-based UAV pilot! Come work with me to apply UAV remote sensing to hydrology problems in the beautiful Canadian Rockies/Prairies. Experienced pilot wanted-platform/sensor training provided.
RT's appreciated
Questions? message me
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Perspective matters. From an earth bound oblique angle flowering canola can look deceptively good. From altitude its pretty clear water variability is driving some pretty stark differences again at our
@LFCE_usask
site...
#drought23
#westcdnag
@CentreForHydro
@usask_water
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Field tech needed in the Rockies! Do you need more convincing?
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Bring on the snow! Our met station at
@LFCE_usask
has been fully operational for a while now and an exciting addition today was the Chione from
@KinarNicholas
which uses sound to measure snow properties like density and water equivalent.
#CentreForHydro
#GWFutures
#usask_water
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Snow is incredibly variable on the prairies primarily because of blowing snow redistribution. With drone lidar and snow surveys can get a pretty amazing snapshot of where it ends up. Treelines and wetlands (hot colors) have up to 550 mm of water! Fence line drifts are ok too:)
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Day 1 of
#SnowEpix
campaign at fortress mountain in the bag. First flight of the drone-chione system and other sensors. Drone based non destructive swe sampling on the horizon. A tad chilly but we have all our toes.
#CentreForHydro
#usask_water
#GWFutures
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Had the pleasure of checking out the snow in the Elrose SK area yesterday-thanks for the invite
@MikePalmier
! Wish I had had more time but was able to compare some different stubble types- durum (25 cm), canola (30-45cm), and a stripper canola (90cm)
#KnowYourSnow
🧵1/14
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The prairie climate always varies but the whiplash of the last 2 years has been a little much. 2021 prairie wide drought now a 2022 flood/drought sandwich. But things seem to be on the upturn with recent precip in the SW dry zones. 🧵on the hydrology of dry->wet transition 1/17
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Day 1 of drone-lidar snow depth mapping at Fortress Mountain complete. Training a new technician so kept the objectives reasonable. Snow rolled in on schedule so day in the lab data processing tomorrow and then full basin survey the next 🤞
@CentreForHydro
@GWFutures
@usask_water
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In drought dry=hot because of surface energy balance interactions. A drone thermal image yesterday (air temp 28C) shows an irrigated canola surface ~15C vs drought-stressed dryland wheat >40C. To understand the "why" follow me down this 🐰🕳️
#WestCdnAg
#water
#drought23
🧵1/10
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I keep beating the drum that “snow is important to ag and can be managed” so figured that I’d put some skin in the game. Trialing leave strips on my hayland this year for fun–in theory📈surface roughness 📈snow retention and📈snowmelt recharge should 📈 production next year🧵1/11
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So in short, considering only the heat and dryness the combination of the two are conspiring to put 2021 drought severity on the same order as 1961 and 1988. I admit I was not around for those events so we'll have to revisit the stories of the old timers.
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Uav based gamma-ray spectrometer survey this afternoon. Going to see what kind of snow data we can get out of this system this winter. Getting the baseline snow free data just in time before the snow flies tomorrow! ❄️
@CentreForHydro
@usask_water
@GWFutures
@TTSW_GWF
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So with all the foggy days lately there’s been a lot of hype around the folklore that it will rain 90 days later. I’m all for hope and if true I could skip a lot of work when making hydrological predictions. I have an inclination to test out ideas so I put it to the test🧵1/13
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Was good to get the new drone system running in the Rockies today. Round 2 tomorrow!
#lidar
#thermal
#multispectral
@CentreForHydro
@usask_water
@GWFutures
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Our paper on observing crop water use efficiency (WUE) on the Canadian Prairies is now out in
@agformet
! With eddy covariance we measured field scale WUE for various prairie dryland crop types over 17 site-years to learn more about WUE dynamics.
#WestCdnAg
#water
🧵1/11
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Snow always tells a story. In this case wind direction of the last 2 blowing snow events…
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The big birds are here! First successful test flights of the Airborne Cold Regions Observatory kit! I don't think I'm ready for this data deluge...
@InnovationCA
@CentreForHydro
@usask_water
@GWFutures
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I always choose optimism but the current scenario with minimal snow and recent rain/surface freezing has me pretty concerned. I want to be wrong on this. Likely the last story with my USask affiliation
#westcdnag
#snow
#water
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Forests make it really hard to observe sub-canopy
#snow
remotely. New paper comparing
#UAV
#lidar
and
#SfM
sub-canopy snow depth accuracy and opportunities and challenges moving forward! Made possible by a great team!
@CentreForHydro
@GWFutures
@TTSW_GWF
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One way of looking at the heat side is to consider growing degree days (basically the accumulation of heat-here I'm starting June 1). So to date we can see that 1988 and 1961 were the only two other years that were warmer but 2021 is tracking to potentially exceed them yet.
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I’m continually astounded by the advances in the drone and sensor tech we use in our
#snow
#hydrology
research. The systems we use now were not in my imagination a couple years ago and yet here we are.
@CentreForHydro
@usask_water
@GWFutures
#drones
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Academics can argue about all sorts of ways to define drought but at the end of the day if you are in ag drought is when, due to complicated interactions of hot and/or dry, the plants can't meet their water use demands and growth/health/yields suffer.
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It keeps snow and blowing + I needed fresh air = snow survey to update ya'll on the snowpack. On pea stubble we have 65mm water equivalent-compared to 105mm snowfall meaning 38% has been redistributed/sublimated. A closer look at the snow gives insights on what is to come...
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The forecasted rain looks to be sizeable in the SW prairies but is it enough to make a dent in moisture deficits? From a soil moisture perspective you need to consider plant available soil water holding capacity (fraction) which varies with texture.
#water
#westcdnag
#soil
1/5
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To motivate the rain I figured I should put out all the rain gauges I could find (I think I have more). Apparently people think they are clever giving me gauges when I do speaking gigs on ag-water but jokes on them because now I can compare them all ;)
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Headed to Canmore do some snow mapping in the headwaters this week. So drive by snow survey of
#westerncanada
today. Quite curious where snow line will be. Point 1: Saskatoon=Mostly snow covered and slightly blowing.
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Happy
#WorldWaterDay
! Water connects us all and hope you can enjoy whatever phase of it you are in!
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Now at the end of the 2023 crop year, so while bins are getting filled, I get the data to put the water dynamics into context. How much water did crops use and where did it come from this year?🧵👇for a brief review of a site
@LFCE_usask
near YXE
#westcdnag
#drought23
#water
1/9
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You know what’s more motivating than the toxic publish or perish mentality in academia? At breakfast after working late kid: “did you finish your paper?” Me: “yep-draft is done” kid: “good job dad, I’m proud of you” and then proceeds to start clapping , me: 🥹💗
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Day4 of
#UAV
campaign means flying
#thermal
,
#multispectral
, and
#hyperspectral
and then checking out the Fortress Ledge weather station (not many people get here) and the brilliant blue waters of Bonsai Lake (any guesses on name origin?).
@CentreForHydro
@usask_water
@GWFutures
0
3
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Another aspect to heat is that it compresses the growth stages of a plant. The one job of a plant is to reproduce so when under stress it speeds through growth stages in order to produce some seeds rather than maximize its production potential aka little plants few seeds
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In the ag-water context the conditions at the time of the fall to winter transition are critically important for the snowmelt infiltration/runoff aka soil moisture for the upcoming growing season. So there a couple things to keep in mind...
#WestCdnAg
#snow
#water
🧵1/11
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Looking at a dataset of shelterbelt locations in Saskatchewan and just gonna say that folks west of Outlook really got into shelterbelt planting in a big way....
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Snow surveyed at home couple days ago (south east of Saskatoon) and came away with a water equivalent of 61mm. Mean snow density of 0.21 g/cm3. This is also my hayland snow management test site and starting to see some interesting dynamics there.
#KnowYourSnow
🧵
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0
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Day 3
#SnowEpix
. Gusty day so focussed on using the drone-chione and digging snow pits for validation data in a nice sheltered forest clearing. Getting all the data!!Forecast takes a turn tomorrow so that’s a wrap.
@CentreForHydro
@GWFutures
@usask_water
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This apparently resonated while I was busy chasing bales on my neighbours sparse and incredibly rough field! Forages are also suffering in similar ways even with their established root systems.
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Day 3 in Canmore: successful lidar mapping of the fortress mountain basin. Weather couldn’t decide if it wanted to snow or be sunny but minimal wind was 👌. Our new pilot Maddie now understands what I mean when I say “complex terrain”.
@CentreForHydro
@usask_water
@GWFutures
0
1
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Precipitation is conceptually easier to quantify but it is incredibly variable in time and space (we all know how it only rain on the neighbor's). Considering accumulated precip since June 1 we can see that 2021 dryness is similair to 1961 and 1988 currently and dryer than 2002
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5
31
Fall on the prairies did not disappoint today. But it’s also real dry…
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So when moisture is not limited a plant can still thrive in hot conditions - like in the depressions with soil moisture reserves. But if water is limited plants will be quickly damaged and yield potential will be permanently lost. These dynamics can be seen in close proximity.
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If there is a thunderstorm on the prairies but no rain gauge beneath it did it even rain?🌧️Recent
#thunderstorms
are some pretty dramatic example of the extreme spatial variability of rainfall in the
#CanadianPrairies
🧵 1/13
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Last day for my academic career today with
@CentreForHydro
@usask_water
🫡 Have had some pretty memorable opportunities over the years (getting nostalgic as I archive the past 16 yrs of my life). Looking forward to bringing my full attention to bear
@swatmaps
from now on!
#onward
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My natural habitat is the
#sk
prairies but some days I also get to the headwaters. FANTASTIC weather and a wealth of
#uav
#lidar
,
#optical
,
#multispectral
, and
#thermal
data was collected at the stunning Peyto Glacier. Thanks
#ParcsCanada
for the permit!
#usask_water
#GWFutures
0
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31
Just enough snow for the Harder ski trails to open for the season. Open to all but if you slow down you are subjected to way more conversation about snow and why it is great and weird than you thought was possible.
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It's the time in the ag year where a lot of decisions are being made with really uncertain information about the upcoming seasons weather. I'd advocate that instead of looking at a weather forecast you should look beneath your feet
#soilmoisture
#WestCdnAg
#water
@SWATMAPS
🧵1/7
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31
There is little runoff potential right now but only if we don't get more snow. With all these midwinter melts and rain saturating/freezing the surface any appreciable amount of snow moving forward will runoff regardless of how dry it is beneath
#WestCdnAg
#HydrologyIsNonLinear
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8
31
The more recent drought in early 2000's was not as hot. So heat this year is a big part of the story. When air temperatures are hot a plant needs to transpire more water to regulate its temperature. Energy/heat is needed (cooling the plant) to change water from liquid to vapor.
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Near Broderick today installing a soil/met station and flying lidar and thermal drones to collect baseline info before crop gets going. Part of an ADF project looking at how best to quantify in season crop spatial variability.
@CentreForHydro
@usask_water
2
1
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Day 2 in Canmore-lidar data processing training on day 1 data. Loads of VPN/licence/software shenanigans to take glamour down a notch but got there eventually:) now to turn these 49 million points into some science!
@CentreForHydro
@GWFutures
@usask_water
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Dreams do come true sometimes apparently. Making hay on our own land with my own buddy in the same buddy seat I grew up in...
#CircleOfLife
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In the midst of the original push for zero-tillage I doubt many advocates fully appreciated the regional scale climate/weather feedbacks of what they were pushing. Who knew farmers were also geo-engineers mitigating climate change before those terms became cool? 21/21
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We finally won the thunderstorm lotto today. 26mm I’m just under an hour with 15mm in the first 15 minutes. At those rates even our sand soil was ponding/running off nicely.
#skstorm
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Sand bars on the south Saskatchewan River. Nature is art.
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If you made it this far through this thread you get ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ but it’s really time for you to get of your phone and back to work… 12/12
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0
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Met station in place for some prairie
#snowmelt
observations. My 7th year running some sort of snowmelt campaign in the prairies and it’s always unpredictable when and how fast the action happens. Prep is key.
@CentreForHydro
@GWFutures
@usask_water
1
1
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Day 2 of
#SnowEpix
was warm and calm!
#UAV
#lidar
for the entire fortress basin collected- high res snow depth data! Also needed to get some manual obs to make sure we remain in reality:)
@CentreForHydro
@usask_water
@GWFutures
1
6
28
Snowmelt/runoff near Saskatoon has been interesting to watch this year. If all you see is water in the ditches and depressions you’d be led to believe that we are in better shape water wise than last year because surface water exists this year and didn’t last year. short🧵
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Oh May 9 in Saskatchewan... Why do you feel the need to confirm that snow falls at temperatures above 0C. Just because I once wrote a paper about it doesn’t mean I need to be reminded that this is possible.
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Canadian Rockies scenery, snow and weather do not disappoint. Fantastic day with a canopy fully loaded with snow to start and then not so much at the end when the gusts came. Some tech issues but that is fieldwork🤷
@CentreForHydro
@GWFutures
@usask_water
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Day 4 in Canmore and high winds so data processing of day 3 data it was. The ability and precision to digitally resolve trees, topography, snow…. with lidar still amazes me. So many possibilities!
@CentreForHydro
@usask_water
@GWFutures
1
2
29
Migrated to Fortress Mountain today for
#hyperspectral
and
#thermal
#uav
mapping to understand how and where plants use water in alpine areas. Also needed to make sure the video unit was working correctly.
#HighFive
Thanks team!
#GWFutures
#usask_water
@LindseyLangs
0
3
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First group shot of the smart water systems lab fleet! Until drone swarms are allowed this is the closest I’ll get to my dream of a Flying V.
#mightyducks
#GWFfieldwork
#GWF
#AWF
#Usask
#ebee
#DraganflyRC
#M600
#hyperspectral
#LiDAR
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6
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I'm always fascinated by water-vegetation gradients on the prairies. From left we have alkali slough, exposed alkali shoreline, riparian veg and a dismal wheat crop... unique environments all within 30m - whoever said the prairies were boring!
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1
25
With forecasted melt conditions this week it's time to do end of winter snow surveys to know the actual recharge potential before melt gets underway. Our Mar-9 surveys
@LFCE_usask
saw 59, 88 and 92mm of water equivalent on Corn stubble, Forage, and Barley stubble respectively.
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3
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Fortress Mountain is such an intense place and is never the same between visits. The amount of
#snow
blowing UP the slope and sublimating away in that vertical plume is such a fascinating process!
#ModelThat
0
7
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Runoff to depressions is always exciting to see. Confirmation that hydrology still works in the ways we except is surprisingly appreciated. Melt taking a bit of a hiatus today so we could even drive to our sites!
1
0
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Peyto glacier is a fascinating and dynamic place and we collected an unnecessary amount of data yesterday to document its state. At the same time I really don’t like how much I’ve normalized the rapid rate of this glacier’s recession/collapse 😞
@CentreForHydro
@GWFutures
1
3
28
Are we at peak prairie snow for the year with melt around the corner? Perhaps- so that means it’s time to measure how much there is with the big guns 💪.
#lidar
for snow depth
#multispectral
for albedo
#thermal
for energy balance.
@CentreForHydro
@usask_water
@GWFutures
5
2
27
Amazing how quickly a forecast can change the headlines. Perhaps this is the start of pattern that starts chipping away at the moisture deficits but it take seasons of sustained precipitation for droughts to be "erased".
2
5
27
Friendly reminder that we are hiring a Canmore-based UAV pilot! Come work with us to apply UAV remote sensing to hydrology problems in the beautiful Canadian Rockies/Prairies.
RT's appreciated
Questions? message me
1
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