Erin Towler

Erin Towler is a Project Scientist in C3WE with research interests spanning the water-climate-decision interface. Erin uses her expertise in water resources and passion for use-inspired research to make weather and climate risks relevant to water resource management. Her work has contributed to understanding climate risks to water quantity and quality, with applications in water supply and flood prediction and forecasting. Erin leads C3WE’s Climate and Weather Extremes Tutorial, which provides participants with knowledge and tools to conduct extreme weather research.  Erin received her PhD in Water Resources Engineering from the University of Colorado Boulder in 2010 and is a Postdocs Applying Climate Expertise (PACE) alumni. Erin serves on the U.S. CLIVAR Predictability, Predictions, and Applications Interface (PPAI) Panel and a member of the Mountain West Climate Services Partnership.

At NCAR, Erin’s current research projects have focused on improving predictions of water availability and risks, including making seasonal to decadal predictions actionable for water management. Working with U.S. Bureau of Reclamation water managers, Erin is leading research to understand the seasonal predictability of monsoon precipitation, including extremes, in the U.S. Southwest, and its potential role in their future water supply. Further, Erin has applied decadal predictions; for instance, showing the utility of decadal temperature predictions for streamflow prediction in the Colorado River Basin. Erin also works on streamflow evaluation of the WRF-Hydro modeling system; she has developed an evaluation framework and data products that advance community benchmarking practices, that are also useful for model diagnostics and development.