News – Dr. Steven R. Fassnacht

2026

January 5, 2026: Oliver Smock, Samantha Nauman, Casandra Lange, and Yanisa Wongveerakul have joined the Snow Lab as undergraduate researchers.
January 5, 2026: Alyssa H. Dietrich and Tyler Lampard have joined the CSU Watershed Science PhD Program and the Snow Lab.

2025

December 19, 2025: Dr. Alicia F. Tyson graduated from the Watershed Science Program at CSU with her PhD.
November 3, 2025: (Dr.) Alicia F. Tyson’s dissertation “Advancing Climate-adaptive Watershed Health by Integrating Socio-ecological Systems and Team Science” has been accepted by the Graduate School.
October 31, 2025: Our paper Let Us Change the Aerodynamic Roughness Length as a Function of Snow Depth was just published in Climate. Check out the video abstract.
October 22, 2025: Congratulations to Marin MacDonald who successfully defended her M.S. thesis.
October 5, 2025: Our paper Outdoor Ice Rinks in Ontario, Canada—An Oversimplified Model for Ice Water Equivalent and Operational Duration to Evaluate Changing Climate was just published in Hydrology. Check out the video abstract.
August 28, 2025: Our paper Snowmelt Streamflow Trends over Colorado (U.S.A.) Mountain Watersheds was just published in Climate. Check out the video abstract.
August 25, 2025: the official start of the fall semester. Welcome Karenth Dworsky to the the Snow Hydrology Lab
August 17-22, 2025: Had a great 6-day Watershed Practicum (WR486) to the Rio Grande and San Luis Valley in southern Colorado. Thanks to the 17 great students, backup from Christina Chow and Niah Venable. A big thanks for Heather Dutton of the San Luis Valley Water Conservancy District for all the extensive organization, coordination, etc. for the trip.
July 4, 2025: Our paper Twin Peaks in Streamflow Dictated by Snow Melt-out Response in Forest and Alpine Zones was just published in Water. Congratulations Lenka Doskocil et al. Check out the video abstract.
June 30, 2025: Our paper Research that has shaped the thinking of mid-career snow hydrologists was just accepted to Hydrological Sciences Journal.
June 10-12, 2025: Steven Fassnacht attend the Eastern Snow Conference and presented a poster.
June 8, 2025: Our paper of a geometric-based aerodynamic roughness length (z0) formulation and code was just published in Remote Sensing. The code is available at CODE.
May 27, 2025: Congratulations to Alicia Tyson for successfully defending her PhD dissertation.
May 19-22, 2025: Marin MacDonald, Christina Chow, Helen Flynn and Steven Fassnacht attend the Western Snow Conference. Marin, Christina and Steven presented posters.
May 16, 2025: Congratulations to Master Jack Reuland who just graduated with a MS in Watershed Science.
April 8-9, 2025: Many from the lab presented papers at Hydrology Days
January 20, 2025: Steven Fassnacht’s editorial “Ice and Snow Scholarship: Challenges and Opportunities” was just published in the journal Glacies.
January 21, 2025: First day of class for CSU students. All the best for S2025 students and instructors.

2024

December 13, 2024: Congratulations to all CSU graduates, including Darya Lilie who just graduated with a MS in Watershed Science.
November 8, 2024: Our paper “Wildfire Impacts for Temperature Index Snowpack Model Parameters” was just published in Hydrological Processes.
October 22, 2024: Our paper “Wildfire Impacts for Temperature Index Snowpack Model Parameters” was just accepted to Hydrological Processes. Congratulations Jeremy!
October 15-17, 2024: Steven R. Fassnacht participated in very successful research hosted by Akita Prefectural University and sponsored by JAMSTEC. He gave a talk on Snowpack Process Formulation: Collecting Sensical Data. We had a very fun and informative post-meeting to Lake Hachirōgata
October 9, 2024: Steven R. Fassnacht gives a seminar at USDA ARS Water Management and Systems Research group in Fort Collins, Colorado on Chasing Water through the Hills! Challenges of Measuring Moisture in the Mountains.
October 5, 2024: Our paper “Synergistic Potential of Optical and Radar Remote Sensing for Snow Cover Monitoring” was just published in Remote Sensing. Congratulations José David!
September 29, 2024: Successful trip to the San Juan Mountains with Christina Chow, supported by the Center for Snow and Avalanche Studies, to do pre-snow sampling.
August 27, 2024: Dr. Jessica Sanow is the lead author on our paper “How does a dynamic surface roughness affect snowpack modeling?” was just published in Polar Science.
August 16, 2024: New M.S. student and Cross Country/Track and Field athlete Madison King just started her degree program and athletic career at CSU.
August 11-16, 2024: Just completed another successful Watershed Practicum (WR486) course, this year examining the Uncompahgre River.
July 9, 2024: Steven R. Fassnacht gives a seminar for the Turkstra Talks at the University of Waterloo on Snow, Climate Change, and Humans.
June 12, 2024: Helen Flynn is the lead author on our paper “Baseflow from Snow and Rain in Mountain Watersheds” was just published in Water.
June 6, 2024: My editorial “Glacies—A New Open Access Journal” was just published in the new journal Glacies. I am the founding Editor-in-Chief for this new journal.
May 28, 2024: Jack Reuland successfully defended his M.S. thesis on “Landscape & Climate Drivers of Burn Severity: Southern Rockies Ecoregion.”
May 23, 2024: Steven R. Fassnacht gives a seminar at the Instituto Geológico y Minero de España on snowpack sublimation, as part of his Fulbright research.
May 11, 2024: Congratulations to Brian Steen, a new M.S. in Watershed Science.
April 25-28, 2024: Steven R. Fassnacht attends the Fulbright Spain and Fulbright Morocco Crossing the Strait Seminar in Córdoba, Spain.
March 29, 2024: Our paper “Location Dictates Snow Aerodynamic Roughness” was just published in the new journal Glacies (100^th refereed journal paper published; first paper in the first issue of a new journal).
March 25, 2024: Our paper “Integrated Spatial Trend Analysis for Climate Change Assessment Using Station Data and Gridded Climate Normals / Integrierte Räumliche Trendbewertung unter Verwendung von Stationsdaten und gerasterten Klimanormalen” was just published in the new journal Geoöko
March 20, 2024: Brian Steen successfully defended his M.S. thesis on “Interdaily Temperature Variability in the Southern Rocky Mountains of Colorado.”
March 11-14, 2024: A successful Snow Hydrology Field Methods course in the Pyrenees (Candanchú and Formigal) co-sponsored by CSIC-IPE
February 28 to March 1, 2024: Helen Flynn (Fulbright Pre-doctoral Fellow at CSIC-IPE), Dr. Jesús Revuelto (CSIC-IPE), Steven R. Fassnacht and work with colleagues from Granada in the Sierra Nevada (Spain) to measure the snowpack. Check out the summary video in English y en Español
February 27, 2024: Steven R. Fassnacht gives a lecture and leads a data analysis exercise with MS students in the RHYMA program at the University of Málaga with the assistance of Helen Flynn (Fulbright Pre-doctoral Fellow at CSIC-IPE)
January 29 to February 2, 2024: Dr. Jessica E. Sanow (now with USGS), Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology JAMSTEC collaborator Dr. Kazuyoshi Suzuki, and Steven R. Fassnacht travel to Shinjo, Japan to work at the NIED Cryospheric Environment Simulator with snow in the wind tunnel
January 24, 2024: Steven R. Fassnacht gives a seminar at the JAMSTEC on the Fulbright experience
January 18, 2024: Steven R. Fassnacht gives a lecture/seminar at the University of Granada
January 17, 2024: Steven R. Fassnacht and colleagues from Granada travel to the Sierra Nevada (Spain) to test a new field sensor array

2023

November 16-19, 2023: Helen Flynn (Fulbright Pre-doctoral Fellow at CSIC-IPE) and Steven R. Fassnacht attend the Fulbright Spain Mediterranean Research Seminar in Alicante, Spain
November 4, 2023: Steven R. Fassnacht starts Fulbright in Spain with Instituto Geológico y Minero de España (IGME) in Granada
October 1, 2023: Steven R. Fassnacht starts Fulbright in Chile with Universidad de Playa Ancha (UPLA) in Valparaíso
September 29, 2023: Anna Pfohl successfully defended her Ph.D. dissertation on “Recent and Future Colorado Water: Snow Drought, Streamflow, and Winter Recreation.”
July 11, 2023: Alex Olsen-Mikitowicz successfully defended his M.S. thesis on “Impact of Dynamic Topography on Snow Distribution Patterns.”
June 11, 2023: Our paper “Snow Surface Roughness across Spatio-Temporal Scales was just published in Water.
May 26, 2023: Our paper “Wildfire and climate change amplify knowledge gaps linking mountain source-water systems and agricultural water supply in the western United States“ led by Dr. David M. Barnard was just published in Agricultural Water Management.
April 27, 2023: The paper by Kampf et al. (2022) was awarded as the Outstanding Publication Award (department) for 2023.
April 26, 2023: Watershed Science Professor Steven R. Fassnacht was awarded the Harry E. Troxell Distinguished Service to Students Faculty Award for 2023.
April 14, 2023: Watershed Science Professor Steven R. Fassnacht was selected as a Fulbright U.S. Scholar for 2023-2024 for Fulbright Global Scholar Award.
March 31, 2023: Ecosystem Science and Sustainability (and Watershed Science minor) undergraduate student Helen Flynn was selected as a Fulbright student scholar.
March 25, 2023: Our paper “Evaluating Methods of Streamflow Timing to Approximate Snowmelt Contribution in High-Elevation Mountain Watersheds” by Pfohl and Fassnacht is now in print in Hydrology.
March 21-22, 2023: Alex Olsen-Mikitowicz, Brian Steen, Alexis Foster, Mark Daniels, Helen Flynn, Marin MacDonald, and Shea Slonkosky and Steven Fassnacht presented at the AGU Hydrology Days conference in Fort Collins, Colorado.
March 6-10, 2023: Dr. Jessica Snow and Steven Fassnacht presented at the ISAR-7 conference in Tokyo, Japan.
January 30, 2023: Our paper “High resolution SnowModel simulations reveal future elevation dependent snow loss and earlier, flashier surface water input for the Upper Colorado River Basin” is now in print in Earth’s Future.
January 20, 2023: Our letter “Reply to You and Xu: Delayed wildfires in 2020 promote snowpack melting in the western United States” is now in print in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.
December 12-16, 2022: PhD candidate Anna Pfohl, Bachelor’s candidate Helen Flynn, and Bachelor’s candidate Marin MacDonald attended the AGU Fall Meeting in Chicago.
September 29 to October 29, 2022: Success fellowship to Japan supported by the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science working at Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology with a week in Shinjo at the Shinjo Cryospheric Environment Laboratory.
the pandemic causes delays