315 IDŐJÁRÁS Quarterly Journal of the Hungarian Meteorological Service Vol. 120, No. 3, July – September, 2016, pp. 315–329 Comparison of simulated and objectively analyzed distribution patterns of snow water equivalent over the Carpathian Region Hristo Chervenkov * and Kiril Slavov National Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology – Bulgarian Academy of Sciences 66, Tsarigradsko Shose blvd, Sofia 1784, Bulgaria E-mails:hristo.tchervenkov@meteo.bg, kiril.slavov@meteo.bg * Corresponding author (Manuscript received in final form February 8, 2016) Abstract―Snow is a very important component of the climate system which controls surface energy and water balances. Its high albedo, low thermal conductivity, and properties of surface water storage impact regional to global climate. The various properties characterizing snow are highly variable and thus have to be determined as dynamically active components of climate. However, on large spatial scales, the properties of snow are not easily quantified either from numerical modeling or observations. Thus, it is vital to estimate the model performance in comparison with consistent datasets of assimilated data. Snow water equivalent data simulated with four different model configurations of the RegCM climate model over Central Europe for a time window of 10 consecutive winters are compared with the objective analysis data from the high-resolution CARPATCLIM database on monthly and seasonal basis. The CARPATCLIM snow water equivalent data are also modeled, but based on the gridded daily observation of the temperature, precipitation, and relative humidity. The results reveal good commensurability over the bigger, mostly flat part of the domain, however, they show significant discrepancies, mainly overestimation, over the Carpathian Region. Key-words: snow water equivalent, numerical simulation, RegCM 1. Introduction Snow is a very important component of the climate system which controls surface energy and water balances, and it is the largest transient feature of the land surface according Yang et al. (2001). It has an effect on atmospheric circulation through changes to the surface albedo, thermal conductivity, heat capacity, and aerodynamic roughness, as it has been documented in numerous