The picture above shows the Rees River, near Queenstown on the South Island of New Zealand. Off in the distance, and mostly obscured by clouds, are the Southern Alps. Movement of warm, moist air masses against these mountains can trigger intense rainfall and rapid snowmelt, resulting in some very large floods. The problems we face here in Colorado are different, but likewise complex. We live in an area of sparse precipitation and high evapotranspiration, thus small differences in either of these terms can have a relatively large effect on the annual water balance.
Snow is very important in Colorado, both as a basis for recreation and as a source of water supply.
However, our ability to measure snow depth and snow cover in Colorado's mountains is still quite limited, and we are not yet to the point where we can forecast the timing or volume of snowmelt runoff very accurately. The goal of this course is to give you a balanced introduction to hydrology- one that includes a description of the basic processes and a coherent presentation of the theories and techniques used to solve hydrologic problems. In practice, hydrologists must quantify rates at which water is exchanged between the atmosphere, the ground and the ocean, and this often involves manipulating large amounts of data. As you will see, it's often fairly easy to lose sight of the conceptual part of the problem once you enter into the realm of mathematical techniques and data analysis. The course is structured around the hydrologic cycle, which you can picture as a set of linked processes that cycle water between the ocean, atmosphere and land surface.