Category Archives: hydrology

Measuring actual evapotranspiration with weighing lysimeters

Posted on March 12, 2020 by Anne Jefferson

Weighing lysimeters are one of the very best ways of measuring the actual evapotranspiration from a small area of land, because they use mass balance (i.e., changing weight) to give us the combined total of plant transpiration, soil evaporation, and interception losses over time. Continue reading →

Categories: by Anne, hydrology, teaching

Measuring precipitation: radar and satellite based measurements

Posted on March 11, 2020 by Anne Jefferson

…the vexing problem is figuring out how well that point measurement represents a broader area of interest. So in this post, I want to focus on technologies that look to the sky to provide data on the intensity of precipitation occurring over broader areas. Continue reading →

Categories: by Anne, hydrology, teaching

Measuring precipitation: rain gauges and point precipitation data sources

Posted on March 11, 2020 by Anne Jefferson

As watershed hydrologists, we care a lot about precipitation, especially when it reaches the land surface (or the vegetation just above it). Precipitation is the dominant input to our water balances and a major driver of streamflow and water table … Continue reading →

Categories: by Anne, hydrology, teaching

Announcing STORMS

Posted on June 16, 2018 by Anne Jefferson

I’m pleased to announce that I’m leading a new multi-institution NSF-funded project investigating how stormwater decision making translates to environmental outcomes at the watershed scale. I’m collaborating with Aditi Bhaskar (Colorado State University), Kelly Turner (UCLA), and Dave Costello (Kent … Continue reading →

Categories: by Anne, environment, hydrology, public science, society

Conifers capture the snow, but do they intercept it?

Posted on December 27, 2017 by Anne Jefferson

If you’ve walked through the forest on a rainy day and noticed that it’s drier under the trees, you’ve experienced interception. In hydrology, interception is when water gets hung up on vegetative leaves, needles, or branches and never makes it … Continue reading →

Categories: by Anne, hydrology, ice and glaciers, photos