HyMet is a consulting firm working in water-related projects in the western
United States and worldwide. HyMet's focus is on computer forecasting models for
streamflow, snowmelt, runoff and glacier mass balance. Hydroelectric utilities,
energy traders, and irrigation districts are the main users of the model's
results.
HyMet's principal, Wendell Tangborn, has developed and refined a complex array of
algorithms to forecast accumulation and snowmelt in remote, mountainous
watersheds. The benefit of the computer-model approach to predicting runoff is
that the input data are taken from readily available low-altitude observations
of basic weather conditions, eliminating the need to measure snow accumulation
directly.