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Operational water-resource planning faces an increased challenge with a changing seasonal snowpack in mountain watersheds due to global and regional climatological factors. An example region is the Western United States, where there is a demonstrated decline in extent and amount of seasonal snow in mountain ranges such as the Sierra Nevada, California, or the Rocky Mountains, Colorado. Causes for the shift include precipitation phase changes or increased amounts of dust on snow. Like the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center (CBRFC), regional forecasters cannot currently account for these factors when their prediction method relies on an empirical snow model based on historic calibration records. To evaluate the options and supplement the current method of the CBRFC, we run a physical-based snow energy balance model for past water years in a subset region; the East River Watershed …