As an MSU undergrad studying snow science, a summer internship might sound unlikely. Fortunately, snow is an invaluable resource year-round out here in the west, providing the majority of our water supply. My original project with the Henry’s Fork Foundation was to install snow monitoring stations across the watershed to better capture the spatial variability of its winter snowpack, however funding and approval has been backlogged. Luckily, my mentor ,Dr. Otto Lang, had another project in mind.
Dr. Lang has been working with a model called “iSNOBAL”, which is used to predict and simulate future snowmelt. The model includes many different variables, one of which is the fraction of sunlight that is able to pass through to the ground, known as the “Sky View Factor” or SVF. SVF is heavily influenced by forest canopy, which in turn influences how much longwave radiation is able to reach the snow on the ground during the winter, affecting both accumulation and melt rates. Our project this summer aims to provide a new, more robust dataset that better captures the SVF of different forest types across the Henry’s Fork Watershed. I spent my first week working with QGIS to create different areas of canopy cover based on canopy height, density, and whether or not an area had been disturbed by the U.S. Forest Service (ex: thinning or logging). The next step was to go out and take pictures of the canopy in these different areas using a 360 camera. Taking pictures involved a lot of bush-wacking and not knowing which direction I was facing, which was a welcome challenge after a week of computer work. This week, I am rotating between smacking my face with tree branches and processing the images in the office, using a SVF calculator.
The whole process has been really inspiring and fun, as I get to use something I created with GIS to actually collect data that will be implemented in real life. The life cycle of snow doesn’t stop when winter ends, and I am very grateful for the opportunity the foundation has given me to use my work to better the future of the Henry’s Fork Watershed.
This thing provides really flattering selfies
A screenshot of the lodgepole canopy types. All the colors in the candy store.
I was able to find some snow, and while no science was done on it, it was still pretty fun to ski down!
For the first half of my internship, it was unclear if we would get to install the snow monitoring stations. With only three weeks left in my internship, the parts arrived, the permitting was approved, and I am happy to say that we have three stations in the ground! Dr. Lang, Joe, and I were like three kids on Christmas opening up all the boxes, only a little more careful due to the fragility of
Our Aquatic Ecology Program Manager, Dr. Jack McLaren, joined Idaho Falls city and FIPS-Mouche leadership at the opening ceremony parade along the Snake River Greenbelt to welcome competitors to the watershed and to make sure conservation was front and center.
Drone photo of Island Park Dam taken on September 9, 2026 Looking Back on September September brought lows and highs to Island Park. Island Park Reservoir started September at 29% full and quickly fell to a low of 12% full on September 19. The rapid drawdown of the reservoir was the result of managers needing to move water downstream to American Falls (to irrigate farms in the Magic Valley with senior water rights). Such low
This story was written by Audrey Hunter (2026 intern) and was originally published in the Fall 2026 Newsletter. It’s no secret that late summers on Island Park Reservoir haven’t been in perfect conditions in recent years. Warm, turbid, algae-filled water plague reservoir recreationists while diminishing water quality downstream. Cyclical algal blooms decrease water clarity and create less-than-ideal circumstances for the reservoir’s flora and fauna. What’s the solution? HFF’s DIRTT Plan. In-Reservoir Oxygenation Nutrients released from
