Installation of an automatic weather station in the semi-arid Andes of Chile (gif animation)

You may have a great hydrological model, the lack of in situ meteorological data is always a problem when you aim at simulating the runoff in high-elevation catchments. Put another way, "Garbage in, garbage out" (Stef Lhermitte pers. comm.).

In the Laguna dam catchment (9700 km²) in the semi-arid Andes of Chile, elevation ranges between 3150 and 6220 m asl. As part of a Fondecyt project led by Pr Christophe Kinnard, we had set up five 'low cost' automatic weather stations in this catchment to get better understanding on the snow cover evolution and its contribution to runoff.

The white surface in the background is the Tapado glacier. This area is monitored by glaciologists and hydrologists at the Centro de Estudios Avanzados en Zonas Aridas (CEAZA).