Reynolds Creek Experimental Watershed, Idaho (Precipitation)

An extensive precipitation database has been developed over the past 35 years with the first records starting in January 1962 and going through September 1996 from the Reynolds Creek Experimental Watershed located near the north end of the Owyhee Mountains in southwest Idaho. Precipitation ranges from 236 mm on the lowest elevations at the north end of the watershed to 1123 mm at the southwest corner of the watershed. The gauge network was changed in 1967-1968 from a single unshielded, universal-recording gauge at each location to the dual-gauge system that is presently used. The dualgauge system consists of an unshielded and a shielded universal-recording gauge with orifices 3.05 m above the ground. The number of dual-gauge sites was reduced from the original 46 in 1968 to 17 by 1996. Also, several sites have been added and/or taken out of the network at various times for special studies. There are continuous 35 year records available for 12 sites, 20-32 year records available for 8 sites, 10-19 year records available for 25 sites, and 4-9 year records for 8 sites for a total of 53 sites. All of these data have been stored as breakpoint and hourly records in the USDA-ARS, Northwest Watershed Research Center database. These breakpoint and hourly data are available.