Early disappearance of winter snowpack can have a major impact on spring and summer water supplies for people, ecosystems, and agriculture.
Test runs of experimental models for predicting winter snowpack show some success in many mountain ranges in the western United States.
Rains return to California to start 2016
February 3, 2016
Few things are more important to California’s water supply than the water content of the mountain snowpack at the start of the state’s warm season. In the latest round of our Climate Challenge game, experts and participants predicted the water content of the Sierra Nevada snowpack on May 1, 2015. The answer was disturbingly low.
Variability in snowpack across the mountain ranges of the U.S. West at the start of the warm season can translate into big differences in fire risk and summer water stress.