Changes in the wintertime hydroclimatic regime in St. John River, Maine, USA

Abstract

Abstract Changes in the flow regime in snowmelt- and ice-dominated rivers have important implications for navigation, flood hazard, recreation, and ecosystems. We investigated recent changes in the high flows of the St. John River basin in Maine, USA, with a view to quantify changes in high-flow characteristics, as well as extreme event estimates. The results analyzed herein demonstrate shifts in springtime streamflow as well as in emergent wintertime (January–February) streamflow over the past four decades. A Poisson-based regression approach was applied to develop a model for the diagnosis of weather–climate linkage. The sensitivity of episodic warm weather events to the negative phase of the Tropical–Northern Hemisphere (TNH) atmospheric teleconnection pattern is evident. Although a modest sample size of historical data on the weather–climate linkage imposes a limit in terms of reliability, the approach presented herein shows a modest role of the TNH pattern, in response to the warm phase of El Niño/Southern Oscillation, as one of the factors that contribute to hydroclimate variability in the St. John River basin. This diagnostic study sought to investigate the changes in the wintertime streamflow regime and the relative linkages with short-term concurrent weather events, as well as large-scale climatic linkages. This improved an understanding of hydrological extremes within a climatological context and offers new knowledge to inform water resources planning and decision-making.