Western U.S. Snowpack At Lowest Levels Ever Recorded, USDA Confirms
(Reuters) - Meager precipitation and a premature spring thaw caused by unusually mild temperatures last month have left the U.S. Western mountain snowpack, a key source of fresh surface water for the region, at record low levels, the government reported on Friday.
Melting of winter snows began much earlier than usual this year, from the Sierra Nevada range in California to the lower elevations of Colorado's Rockies, leaving much of the Western snowpack greatly diminished or gone by early April, when it is typically at its peak.
As a consequence, Western states will experience reduced stream-flows from mountain runoff this spring and summer, leaving reservoirs - already well below average capacity in several states - that much more depleted, the report said. The latest snowpack snapshot was contained in an April survey issued by the U.S. Agriculture Department's Natural Resources Conservation Service.
The issue drew wide public attention in drought-stricken California last week, when Governor Jerry Brown stood on dry grass at a snow-monitoring station in the Sierras to announce the lowest snowpack level on record there and ordered an unprecedented 25 percent mandatory cut in statewide water use. The scant mountain snowpack extends this year to a dozen Western states, said Michael Strobel, director of the National Water and Climate Center in Portland, Oregon. "It's pretty extreme," he said.
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http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/10/us-usa-snowpack-west-idUSKBN0N12BM20150410?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
