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ARS Home » Pacific West Area » Boise, Idaho » Northwest Watershed Research Center » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #65901
Title: "MAKEPROF' AN INTERACTIVE PROGRAM FOR MAKING PROFILES TO EVALUATE SNOTEL DATA. USER'S MANUEL

Author
item Cooley, Keith
item SEARCY, MARTIN - GRAD STUDENT UTAH STATE U
item PALMER, PETER - NRCS

Submitted to: United States Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service
Publication Type: Government Publication
Publication Acceptance Date: 7/18/1995
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: Several values of hydrologic data are presently being transmitted daily or more often from over 550 remote sites in the western United States to western State Offices of the National Resource Conservation Serive. While most of the temperature, precipitation and snow water equivalent values are of good quaility, there are occasional sensor or transmission problems that tcreate false ro bogus readings. Detection of these false reading is presently accomplished by manual visual inspection of the rather large data sets by NRCS personnel. A computer program was developed to assist in evaluating the accuracy or correctness of these hydrologic data as they are received each day. The program analyzes historical data from a site or group of sites and establishes profiles or limits with respect to seasonal trends. These profiles or limits are then used to automatically evaluate new values of data being transmitted from the remote sites each day for accuracy or correctness. Each value that falls outside of the established limits is marked or flagged as suspect and can then be adjusted or accepted by the data collection specialist. The implementation of this computer program will save NRCS personnel considerable time since only flagged data will require review, rather than the massive number of data received each day from several sensors at each of over 550 remote data sites. The process of developing profiles or limits will also provide NRCS personnel valuable insight to the unique climatic characteristics of each site thus increasing their capabilitites for making proper adjustments to values.

Technical Abstract: "MAKEPROF" version 1.1 is a computer program developed for the National Resource Conseration Service (NRCS) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) that assists in generating profiles for evaluations Snow Telemetry (SNOTEL) data collected at over 550 remote sites in the Western United States. The program analyzes historical data and fits profiles, or site-specific data bounding lines (limits), to the data with respect to seasonal trends in the particular climate parameter represented by the data . In addition to producing a set of system-defined profiles, "MAKEPROF" lets the user selectively develop and modify these profiles according to the user's professional expertise. Many tools are provided for "fitting" the profiles closely to the data while still following the seasonal trends and characteristics relative to individual or grounps of SNOTEL sites. Once established, the profiles can be used to automatically validate of flag as suspect new data, as it is collected an transmitted to the NRCS data center. Version 1.1 was designed to meet th needs of the NRCS and the precipitation, snow pillow snow water equivalent, maximum, minimum, and average air temperature data from their SNOTEL sites: However, the program could be applied to the above data parameters from any source, and routines have been written that will develop profiles for wind, solar radiation, soil temperatures, and humidity.