California Snow Surveys and Water Supply Forecasting
Topic:
California Snow Surveys and Water Supply Forecasting
Speaker:
Sean de Guzman, P.E., M.S.: Manager of the Flood Operations Section at the California Department of Water Resources (DWR)
When: Friday, October 18, 12 pm to 1 pm
Where: Virtual (via Zoom)—Link to virtual seminar to be sent upon RSVP
The recording of the webinar is available here
California Snow Surveys and Water Supply Forecasting
As California's climate changes and those changes result in more and more frequent extreme weather events, the Department of Water Resources (DWR) is changing the way it observes and forecasts weather and hydrologic conditions. Partnerships with the research community enable DWR to incorporate advances to ensure a forecasting framework that can adapt at the pace of a changing climate. DWR's California Cooperative Snow Surveys is working with the research community to develop an operational framework for climate resilient forecasting.
The goals for the framework are to transition to spatially explicit, physically based, and climate informed modeling tools, such as watershed models that simulate the physical processes of snow accumulation and melt and incorporate forecasts, and to create an integrated forecast platform that allows easier visual inspection of observed conditions, high-resolution near-term forecasting, standard weather forecasting, week 2 to 4 outlooks, sub-seasonal to seasonal outlooks, and water year outlooks.
Sean de Guzman, DWR's manager of the Flood Operations Section, will discuss the history behind the California Cooperative Snow Surveys Program, snow survey procedures, Aerial Remote Sensing of Snow (ARSS) Program activities, and the roadmap for developing a climate resilient forecasting framework.
About the Speaker
Sean de Guzman, P.E., M.S., is the manager of the Flood Operations Section at the California Department of Water Resources (DWR). He has worked for DWR since 2007 and in the Hydrology and Flood Operations Branch since January 2011. He oversees the Department's statewide flood emergency response and preparedness programs. He also serves as program manager for the Flood Emergency Response Grant Program that has awarded over $45 million in funding to local agencies to improve regional self-reliance. He worked in the Snow Surveys and Water Supply Forecasting Unit from 2013-2023.
While managing the Snow Surveys and Water Supply Forecasting team, he oversaw seasonal water supply forecasting for California's major reservoirs including the Bulletin 120 and Water Supply Index forecasts; hydrologic model development; snowpack measurements through manual snow surveys and automated snow sensors; and the development of tools and products for data analysis, analytics, management, collection, reporting, and dissemination.
Sean was also a part of the team leading California's utilization of proven and emerging technologies and partnerships to improve forecasts of precipitation, snowpack, and runoff; support efficient water management; and help estimate the impacts of climate change as outlined in DWR's Roadmap for a Climate Resilient Forecasting Framework. He has been featured in various media outlets representing DWR and discussing California's hydrologic conditions and was named the "Snow Man" by Politico. He is a licensed professional engineer and earned his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Civil Engineering from California State University, Sacramento.
