California’s snowpack provides a third of the state’s water supply and that’s great news considering we had record snowfall this year. But the snowpack is melting faster and earlier, according to a recent study in the Geophysical Research Letters journal.
The problem
Benjamin Hatchett, an atmospheric sciences professor at the Desert Research Institute, says snow is supposed to accumulate through the winter and melt in the spring and through the summer to supply our water through the dry period of the year.
That matters, because he explains: “our system is not set up to handle that melt and hang onto it. And so we don’t have as much water available when we need it most late in the summer and into the fall.”
Don’t panic just yet!
Andrew Schwartz, of the Central Sierra Snow Laboratory, says most of the snowmelt that’s happened so far has been in burned areas.
“Fortunately, so far, most of our snow melt has yet to occur — with temperatures that are roughly below average for this entire winter, which has been really favorable for holding off some of that early snow melt,” Schwartz says.
Why it matters
A few of things to keep in mind about environmental factors work together to create the current problem:
- Trees destroyed by wildfire can no longer provide shade for snow.
- Burned material left behind by fires turns the snowpack dark and absorbs more sunlight.
- Those two factors drive the snow to melt much faster and earlier.
The backstory
While a lot of snowmelt makes it into reservoirs across the state, they’re managed for flood control and water resources in the winter.
That means even in drought years,…
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