Title: Data associated with Little South Poudre Watershed Climate and Hydrology 1961-1971

Author(s): Meiman, James R.; Leavesley, George H.

Data Curation Supervisor: Steven R. Fassnacht

Data Curation: Mackenzie C. Warden

Department: Warner College of Natural Resources 

Recommended data citation: Meiman, J. R., Leavesley, G. H., Warden, M. C. (data curator), & Fassnacht, S. R. (data curation supervisor). (2022).Data associated with "Little South Poudre watershed climate and hydrology, 1961-1971, basic data." Colorado State University. Libraries. http://dx.doi.org/10.25675/10217/234374

License: CC0: Public Domain (https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/public-domain/cc0/)

Description*:
This dataset contains temperature, precipitation, stream discharge, and snow course data as reported in Meiman and Leavesley (1974). Data were entered into Excel spreadsheets, formatted to reflect the tables in the report. Data were also reformatted as "tidy data" (Wickham, 2014) and saved as .csv files to facilitate machine readability and long-term accessibility.

The stream discharge data (Little_South_Fork_Streams_Discharge_1961-1971) contains discharge data from 1961 to 1971. The streams measured were Fish Creek and Upper and Lower Hourglass. Other gauges in the Little South Fork of the Cache la Poudre Watershed can be found through the USGS (https://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis).

The snow course data (Pingree_area_historical_snow_survey_data) is from 1938 to 1971 depending on location. Locations included are the Hourglass Lake Snow Course (NRCS Station: 05J11), Bennett Creek Snow Course (NRCS Station: 05J33), Pingree Park Snow Course, and Sheep Saddle Snow Course. The snow courses with NRCS station numbers can be found through the NRCS site (https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/national/water/snowsurvey).

Associated publication:
Meiman, J. R. & Leavesley, G. H. (1974).Little South Poudre watershed climate and hydrology, 1961-1971, basic data. Colorado State University. Libraries. http://hdl.handle.net/10217/69300

Spatial Coverage: Pingree Park and Quigley Weather Station; Fish Creek and Hourglass Reservoir; Hourglass Lake; Pingree Park; Sheep Saddle; Bennett Creek

Temporal Coverage: 
1961 - 1971 
(1938 - 1971 for snow survey data)

File format(s): .csv, .xlsx

File inventory:

Pingree_historical_Precipitation_data.csv
Pingree_historical_Precipitation_data.xlsx
Pingree_historical_Temperature_data.csv
Pingree_historical_Temperature_data.xlsx
Quigley_historical_Precipitation_data.csv
Quigley_historical_Precipitation_data.xlsx
Quigley_historical_Temperature_data.csv
Quigley_historical_Temperature_data.xlsx
Little_South_Fork_Streams_Discharge_1961-1971.csv
Little_South_Fork_Streams_Discharge_1961-1971.xlsx
Pingree_area_historical_snow_survey_data.csv
Pingree_area_historical_snow_survey_data.xlsx

Precipitation data are reported in inches.
Daily mean temperature data are reported in degrees Fahrenheit.
Stream discharge data are reported in cubic feet per second.
Snow survey measurements are reported in inches.

For additional information about data collection methodology,  please see Meiman and Leavesley (1974).

Curation note about precipitation data:
Some precipitation data are cumulative over multiple days. For example, in the .csv files:
("
"
"
0.28
")
represents a span of 5 days receiving, in total, the amount of precip listed (0.28")

In the Excel files, cumulative precipitation data are represented by merged cells.

Reference:
Wickham, H. . (2014). Tidy Data. Journal of Statistical Software, 59(10), 123. https://doi.org/10.18637/jss.v059.i10
