Guest Post by Verity Jones
While the MSM is all hot under the collar about the Killer heat wave in the mid-East US, not a mention about the massive snow accumulation in the Western USA this year. It’s not just a few roads being late to open due to the excessive snow clearance effort (WUWT: here and here), the snowpack is way above average this year. Good news for water supply; bad news for riverside communities.
Just take a look at the extent of this – the Snotel map from 5th June below shows percent of normal snow-water equivalent. The measurements are mostly off the scale, which if you’ll note only goes up to 140% of normal. From the lack of blue and green dots, I’m taking it that the red ones are errors.
- Map from: NRCS Google Earth SNOTEL Data Layer
From mid-May there has been concern in many areas over the amount of snow and the potential for flooding, but instead of melting rapidly the snowpack has persisted, and even continued to accumulate. As of 9th June almost all states listed here (with the exception of Alaska, Arizona and New Mexico, which have much less than normal) are showing vast excesses of snow for the time of year. For example Utah:
And a different format depiction for Wyoming:
Below is yet another way of looking at it – here for the Upper Colorado (link: http://snowpack.water-data.com/uppercolorado/index.php), specifically the feed into Lake Powell. Now this really made me sit up. The levels were ticking along a bit above average until just after mid-April, then they began to rise, and rise, and rise. This says two possible things are happening – either more snow has been falling, and/or temperatures are just not rising enough to melt what is there. Either scenario says ‘cold’.
On 5th June:
“April 15th is the date of maximum snowpack and basinwide snowpack is currently 66.6% of the April 15th average
Snowpack is 277.9% of the June 5th average.”
Of course you just know that when the melt really does get going you just know that all that snow and the ensuing flooding will be blamed on CAGW.
This got me thinking – at what rate does snow melt? I mean we’ve got some truly gargantuan snow drifts in places – how likely is it that significant proportions of them will remain in places that have not retained snow in summer for years?
The last slide in this EPA presentation gives ranges for melt rate with a degree-day factor. The range seems to be 0.07-0.150 inches per day per degree F. These are estimates for a variety of conditions ranging from partially forested/shaded areas to open sun on a prairie. Although some are quite specific, they are still estimates. Now if we take the example of a 22ft drift in Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park (Road opens way late due to massive snow) and look up appropriate degree day figures for the region used with this range of melt rate, perhaps we can get an idea of the potential for residual snow pack at the end of the summer.
Using the U. S. degree-day mapping calculator (Coop, L. B. 2010. . Version 4.0. Oregon State University Integrated Plant Protection Center Web Site Publication E.10-04-1: http://uspest.org/cgi-bin/usmapmaker.pl), the following map is for Colorado, calculated between now and the end of September for a 32F base:
Key 
For the higher altitudes we have 1500-2600 degree days before we might expect reasonable additions if not accumulations of snow again, but, still using guestimates for the actual melt rate it seemed sensible to work with a range:
Starting at 264 inches (22 ft) 8th June, the table shows the estimated snow depth remaining on 30th September depending on the assumed melt rate and number of degree days (above 32F). [Update: The table above was produced on the assumption that the melt rates referred to depth of snow. Having covered a lot more background reading on this today I think I should have read the melt rate as “inches SWE/day*F”. Current rates of melting from the NOAA summary table are 0.1-1.6 inches SWE/day. For a 22ft starting snowpack (estimated as 150 inches SWE) my back-of-envelope calculation suggests melt rates would need to be sustained at >1.25 inches SWE/day to remove this depth of snow by the end of September.]
This suggests to me that at higher altitudes there’ll be significant snow ‘left behind’ this year. Those white patches on the distant mountains will be a welcome return for many – cameras at the ready folks!
More than that though, what effect will this have on local/regional temperatures? There would be increased albedo in the mountains where the snow is retained, and potential for cold air drainage as well as depressed river temperatures from prolonged snowmelt over the summer. These effects might be small, and it is, after all, just one unusual year.
Although this is “just weather”, what if we start to have more ‘higher than average’ years now that the PDO has flipped to a cold phase? High pass road opening dates are well documented in Washington State and, having plotted these for the Chinook Pass and North Cascades Highway, I had previously speculated Is the PDO correlated to road openings?
With many analyses suggesting cooler times are on the way, this year may be exceptional in recent experience, but how many “just one year”s would it take for us to notice the effects?
(Updated from post http://diggingintheclay.wordpress.com/2011/06/10/where-snows-dont-melt/)
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Great post! For anyone who wonders how glaciers form, this is it. Now, I am not saying that we are looking at a new period of glaciation. After all, I lived through the panic fed by the presently Warmista back in the 1970s. However, I will say that there is just as much empirical evidence for a new period of glaciation as there is for global warming. Wake up and smell the coffee, MSM.
Verity,
So, I’m not the only one feeling the abnormally cooler temperatures this summer. Odd hot spit but mostly well below average temperatures.
Its already being blamed on Climate change. The video mentions warmer air holds more moisture an blaming this on La Nina.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/43361167#43361167
I wish I could figure out how to send pictures – you will have to head up to Lassen and see for yourself. There are piles of snow in the visitor’s center parking lot 20 feet high.
We parked near the trail to Mt. Broke-off. Hiked up that winding hill with our snow boards – Oma says “schnaybort!” – slow going in boots, let me tell you what! We followed some cross country skier’s tracks. We hiked and hiked, and hiked some more! Finally, when I was so tired I could hardly put one boot in front of the other, I stopped and surveyed the panorama – Lassen is almost completely covered in snow. The caldera is white and hung with waterfalls. After taking that in, I strapped in for about a 30 second ride down to the road. So worth it! The snow was “corny”, it was a swell ride, all the way to the bottom. Skittered across a gaping hole – we could hear the creek running down there, but we couldn’t see it! We rested at the bottom, and when we got cold, we hiked up again.
One year after a spring like this, we boarded the summit in October. We’ve seen people sledding at Lake Helen in their shorts and tank tops in August. It’s a hit and miss situation, some years, rain has ruined the snow by now, and it’s all melted and pitty, mostly gone by July. Other years, it is an alpine wonderland, flowers blooming in late August, etc.
This year, we plan to board Diamond Peak for Father’s Day – Cowabunga! Then we’re headed to Sugar Bowl for Fourth of July – Mount Disney lift will be open til noon – bring your sunscreen!
Snowpack seems to be the ‘cool’ topic of choice at the moment. Seems I’m not the only one with raised eyebrows surrounding the events talking place in western half of the U.S.
Already, we have one guy attributing these events to climate change.
Peter Fimrite, a Chronicle staff writer, asked Mike Pechner, a meteorologist from the Bay Area, to ascribe the cause of the over 90 record levels of snowpack.
Pechner, responds saying, “I think it’s climate change.”
If you care to read more about what I’ve discovered what the IPCC had or hadn’t predicted regarding these events and other facts and newsworthy notes on the subject, please click here.
We all know it is because of a warming world…..yea right.
I am watching Lake Powell fill up.
Jason Bair says:
June 11, 2011 at 7:01 am
“Its already being blamed on Climate change. The video mentions warmer air holds more moisture an blaming this on La Nina.”
Maybe. But how does it keep the snow from melting? I guess that will be in the next IPCC report.
The New York Times has an article about a ski resort in Utah extending its season to July 4 if not later.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/11/sports/skiing/whats-to-be-done-with-15-feet-of-snow-in-june-utah-knows.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&src=ig
Then we have the other side of the spectrum, http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/story/2009/06/15/edmonton-forest-fires-alberta-fire-bans.html
Alberta dry and one third of Slave Lake was destroyed.
Living in Colorado, I can tell you the spring was both cold & wet in the central mtns, leading to the high snowpack #s. It’s melting down now & many of the rivers have flood warnings going
nc says:
June 11, 2011 at 7:54 am
I guess you are suggesting that you have presented confirming evidence for manmade global warming? Well, maybe. However, there is a fierce and strict asymmetry in Scientific Method: confirming instances can increase confidence in a hypothesis or theory but one disconfirming instance, one falsification, can require abandonment of one or more hypotheses. So, all the attention, especially of the MSM, should be on that Western snow pack because it promises to falsify one or more hypotheses of manmade global warming theory. (Well, if pro-AGW folks had a theory. They are so confused that they cannot articulate one.) Still, the MSM should get to work and get to the Western slope, the place where all the drama in climate is found at this time.
Thanks, great report, Verity!
Yep – this sure is Climate Change! Not warming – cooling.
There must be something we can do with all those CAGW believers, to enhance our CO2 output …
It looks like the glaciers will return to Glacier National Park.
Another key factor is snow melt rates is the height of the sun. I am sure many of you on this site who live in snowy areas have noticed that in mid winter, with low sun angles, that temps can be in the mid to upper 30s, even low 40s & the snow doesn’t melt very fast. On the flip side, when you get a late season snow ( as we commonly do in the front range of Colorado) , and the sun is high in the sky, even if temps are in the 20s, the snow melts fast because of the high sun angles. It would interesting to know what is assumed in the table provided in this post.
Continuing on from the last observation, I think it stands to reason that for western glaciation to occur, cold temps are not enough. There must be abundant snowfall as well. This is consistent with the massive glacial lakes & huge alluvial fans developed throughout the Great Basin during the Pleistocene. It also explains how glaciers in the wasatch range extended all the way down to lake bonneville. Today, average summer highs in salt lake city reach 91 deg f in July. Even avg temps dropped 30-40 degrees during a glacial episode, temps in the 50-60 degree range with a high sun angle will melt a ton of snow, again suggesting you need to have a lot of snow to develop features seen in the geologic record. This is a hypothesis I would like to test someday when I have more time.
What’s the point of all of this? I think this last winters pattern gives a lot of insight on how glacial periods in north america might operate. It may all hinge on behavior in the Pacific. if we were to have a series of ” super la ninas” imbedded in an extended & extremely strong cold pdo phase ( or maybe a permanent cold phase) & you had winter after winter like this last one ( or even colder & snowier) snows would begin to accumulate & glaciers would begin to grow. Look at the pattern for the rest of north america as well. Most areas that were covered by continental glaciation also had big snow years this year. For as wet as the western mtns were, the colorado front range was exceptionally dry – as it was during the Pleistocene, as evidenced by the wind driven deflation lakes. Again, I think gives some insight on how glacial periods may operate.
So, I am NOT suggesting we are entering a new glacial period but I am saying I think this past winter gives a lot insight into how glacial weather patterns in north america may operate. It also says to me that this pattern looks nothing like global warming but looks a lot like global cooling
Here’s a tabular SNOTEL report as of Friday June 10 of western US snowpack. The next to the last column on the right, Percent of Average Snow Water Equivalent, is the telling one. Scroll down to Montana, for example, to see why all of the states along the Missouri River (Montana, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas and Missouri are in for a very very soggy summer all the way through August: http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/snotelanom/snotelbasin
nc … yes there was fire in Slave Lake. However:
“The snow is still 135 per cent above average for late May.
The melt combined with additional flakes are keeping snow levels consistently high.
“It’s some of the most snow I’ve seen for this time of year in the last eight years,” says Campbell.
“This is an incredible amount of snow to be up here this late in the year. Usually we are lucky to see these depths in February.””
http://www.globaltvbc.com/Officials+fear+flooding+record+Alberta+snowpack+melts/4869981/story.html
Look,
any time there is something “unusual” with regard to weather, meaning within the short memory span of the average person, there is an insatiable urge to blame it on something as when you find something amiss in your living room and the dog or the kids gets targeted. Any unseen or unexplained action must always have an assigned cause and a new one will be invented regardless how remote the connection, and if it has been in the news, it will be labeled to cover it. I remember when they were doing atmospheric testing in the 50’s and of course anything remotely occurring in “unusual” weather was conveniently blamed on the Nukes. People were happy with that. It is never going to change, only the target of the cause.
The earlier thread on declining snow pack blamed AGW. This heavy snow pack is blamed on AGW, AGW can do anything but good.
@ur momisugly Jeff L.
“It would interesting to know what is assumed in the table provided in this post.”
A starting snow pack of 22ft/264 inches was assumed – this was the height of the report from Rocky Mountain NP. I assumed that any air temperature above 32F has the potential to melt snow, but obviously direct sun/wind/rain will be a factor too that isn’t formally accounted for. The degree day estimates were from a 32F base for 8th June to 30th September. You can see the colours of the various degree days against the topography of the map.
So the table says that in a location which experiences 1800 degree days [days x (degrees-32F)], depending on the actual melt rate that occurs (from the range of estimates), we might expect up to 138 inches of snow remaining on 30th Sept 2011. On the other hand there might be none, if melt rates were at the top end of the range. If they are somewhere in the middle, there is a good change that the bigger drifts will still be there to greet the snows in the Fall.
Oh Oh my bad I posted without explaining, MSM was pointing out the dryness in that area of Alberta as a reault of GW while leaving out the snow and low temperatures in other areas.
@Jeff L.
“So, I am NOT suggesting we are entering a new glacial period but I am saying I think this past winter gives a lot insight into how glacial weather patterns in north america may operate. It also says to me that this pattern looks nothing like global warming but looks a lot like global cooling”
My thoughts exactly! If climate is cyclical – even small cycles in current times, we will be in a ‘growth’ phase but it may take some time for the effects to be noticeable.
Lake Powell is receiving sufficient water from snowmelt such that the lake level is increasing at a rate of approximately one foot per day. The link below shows the lake level over the past 150 days. Wasn’t it a sure sign of global warming that Lake Powell’s level was decreasing? Hmmmmm…
For non-US readers, Lake Powell is a man-made lake on the Colorado River, created by Glen Canyon Dam. Lake Mead and Hoover Dam are downstream on the same river. The Grand Canyon lies between the two lakes.
http://lakepowell.water-data.com/
Lake Powell would likely be anticipating capacity now if they hadn’t started dumping water into Lake Mead in February. http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=14224491 Lake Mead is finally getting ahead of the decadal drought although well behind its historic average for this date and Lake Powell is just about at its historic average, but they are saving space for a huge melt anticipated since January. Of course the environmentalists were angered. When are they not?
The test of any scientific theory is not in the number of times it has been shown to be right. A stopped clock if right twice a day. The test of any theory lies in the number of times it has been shown to be wrong.
In every other branch of science, when the predictions of a theory do not match observations, then that is strong evidence that the theory is wrong. This argues strongly that Climate Science is not science. It is Astrology.
Like Astrology, Climate Science predicts the future, then counts the number of times it is right as proof. Read your horoscope, it will often be correct. According to the rules of Climate Science, this would prove that Astrology is able to predict the future.