The Western Snowpack is 137% of normal

And in a a few years time after the climate has swung into its cold phase and temperatures decline the headlines will read.
“All of our efforts to curb emissions and reduce the effects of Manmade Global Warming are now coming into fruition. You guys ought to deify us as we just saved your sorry ass.”
Believe me, these people have no shame.

Nik:
Curbing emissions would imply a reduction in the rate of increase of CO2. I’m willing to bet it will be hardly affected. Of course, alarmists will likely turn around and declare cooling to be bad, and somehow caused by CO2.

It’s the first time in more than 50 years that Sacramento has experienced such a cold spell this late in the season. As long as the AO index remains negative there will be no NH warming.
http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/ao_index.html

Averaging state percentages doesn’t seems like a good way to Western snow cover – they are all different sizes. The first link doesn’t do it this way, so the comparison is invalid.

And on the news tonight (I live in California) the story is that May precipitation is below normal so expect reduced water deliveries. Go figure. This has been one of the coldest months of May I can remember since moving here. Daytime highs have been some 20 degrees below average many days. Tomorrow’s high is currently forecast to be 58F and 63F the day after. It is nearly June and I live in San Jose. It should be in the 80’s by now.
That increased snow pack in California might be more due to colder temperatures than increased precipitation. Tioga Pass through Yosemite is still closed. Highway 108 (Sonora Pass) is still closed a little South of Yosemite. Most years the pass opens in May but there is one opening recorded as late as July 1. That might have been due to road repairs, though, and not snowpack. 1998 was one heck of a winter, though. We got some 15 inches of rain in one series of storms around New Years Day that flooded parts of Cupertino and San Jose that winter.
Reply: The closure till July 1st was due to snowpack. I drove through Tioga pass on that July 1st. It was a good thing to, otherwise I would have had to drive the long way through Reno instead to visit my family on vacation in the Eastern Sierra. The scenery as magnificent that day.~ ctm

Doesn’t matter. It’s all rotten snow!
😉

But of course you all know now (because I’m telling you) that more snow means Global Warming (because the warming causes more evaporation, more precipitation and hence more snow). And if the ice caps grow any more this year then that’s ‘case closed’ as far as I’m concerned. Just what will it take to convince you Denialismists? Do we have to be buried under 20 feet of ice before you’ll believe in Global Warming?[/sarc]

Thats odd
Rutgers shows neither a positive or negative departure of snow cover in the continental US??!! Lots of negative departure everywhere else though…
http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/chart_daily.php?ui_year=2010&ui_day=144&ui_set=2

That data looks like saying that there is a large anomaly in the SW (Arizona, NM and the gambling state), a reasonable one in California but slightly below elsewhere.
As one assumes that the SW snowpack is the smallest at this time of year, I’d ask what the actual anomaly is in terms of cubic metres of snowpack across the Rockies?
Suspect not a lot or, if anything, slightly down.
Interested to hear answers to that one…..

They were still skiing in the Scottish Highlands last week, the latest in the year in recorded history.
The rise in Lake Powel is good new for Vegas. Is there any info about the Utah salt planes, which periodically become lakes again? Time to prepare the sandbags in Salt lake City?

“Experts tell us that spring snowcover has seen rapid declines in the Northern Hemisphere over the last 20 years. As of today, western US snowpack averaged by state is 137 percent of normal.”
How large a fraction of the Northern Hemisphere comprises the western US?
Why suggest this fraction is 100%?
May 2010 in Holland was very cool. What does it suggest about hemispheric or global temperature? Nothing at all, of course. This cool May is just weather. So is snowcover this spring in that part of the US. Northern hemisphere snowcover has dropped far below normal, no?
Of course, everyone on this forum knows all this. So what is the motive for all this silliness? Could it be you are all trying to be first laughed at, then totally forgotten in order to give Al Gore en Kyoto uncriticisable freeway?

Ross M says:
May 25, 2010 at 11:25 pm
“Averaging state percentages doesn’t seems like a good way to Western snow cover – they are all different sizes. The first link doesn’t do it this way, so the comparison is invalid.”

—
Unless of course snow cover went the other way. ;o)

…What a coincidence that Storlien, Jämtland nowadays Sweden, 583 m ASL {above
myself…LOL…} , snowcover was first measured this season Sept 29…and still counting,
since rather low temperatures are expected the coming days, we may have a record of
10 consecutive months…If not, it’s still a new longevity record, old record being 227
days (CONSECUTIVE!…) SO today we have … 2+31+30+31+31+28+31+30+26=240
DAYS…All of them due to…have’nt a clue…??

I’ll have to wait till friday to get the eaxct numbers, but from memory on Monday when we ran our data the New Zealand South Island snow pack was also around 135% of average for this time of year, and its not even winter yet.

Arnold Governators’ hot seat in California has been Terminated.
He should go back to making movies that need no explanation.

Rhys Jaggar
Why would you assume that snowpack is smallest this time of year? My bike ride last Sunday along the Poudre River was diverted several times by floodwaters from melting snow covering the trail.
Lots of snow at Taos
http://skitaos.org/webcamimages/tsv7a.jpg

Heatwave in Toronto. It feels as if this part of the world is disconnected from larger global trends this year. Sigh… 🙁

R. de Haan says:
May 26, 2010 at 4:16 am
Food supply shortages and increased pricing will be what climate cooling will create. This in turn would lead to more starvation and death to a great many of the poorest.

Off topic but not sure where else to ask. Anthony, how do I find the articles I’ve missed in chronological order? There used to be a button to click at the bottom of the homepage that sent you to prvious articles. I’ve been away from the PC for a while and want to see what I’ve missed

California increased from 131% to 142% overnight, while Rasmussen lost their last ten days of polling data. I wonder if their web site was hacked?

It was warm in Puerto Vallarta last week and there is no snow in the coastal ranges of Mexico. But then, that is to be expected.

Al Gored says:
May 25, 2010 at 11:15 pm
“Yes. Fine. But how much of it is old snow?”
And more importantly, how much is “rotten” snow?

Don’t forget our reservoirs are now 96.18% full and we haven’t had the snow melt yet. Not to mention it’s snowing in the Sierras. Lake Shasta is no 113% of normal and 99% full. Lake Oroville (the one they claim they use for water the most) is now 80% of normal and 69% full and no snow melt yet. But they keep telling us we have a drought in California. The greentards in Sacreamento just don’t want to give it up.

R. de Haan, “The weatherman told his public this was due to a lack of rain.”
That surprised me too. Correct, it was because of the cold. We did some analysis within the met community here and also ruled out the possibility they were different potatoes.
It is the cold. May 2010 is in the 5-10 percentile coldest and after the fairly warm weekend today is very cold indeed again.
http://www.knmi.nl/klimatologie/grafieken/maand/txgn/txgn260_201005.png
Today’s max may hardly exceed 12° C.

Some twit will come out and say this: This is thin first year snow and will melt rapidly. Old snow has mostly disappeared from the mountains.
However, I follow snow pack regularly, which is measured as water equivalent, the only way to measure snow that has meaningful information. Snow cover means nothing in terms of stream flow and water availability. This year Oregon’s water equivalent is adequate for the summer irrigation season and a bit better than last year (by basin, it ranges from 70’s to 130’s % of average water equivalent), so we’re good.

Mr Watts,
I thought cherry picking was a sport practiced by the other team?
Your first graph appears to show that there has been more accumulated snow pack in the South West and less in the North West. There are a few too many averages of averages of a difficult to measure substance going on to believe any of the actual numbers. From the UHI guy (great work) – I expect better of you.

There cannot be that much snow in Arizona in May anyway!
On these maps, there is only a tiny white speck, which was not there last year.
Scroll down.
http://www.climate4you.com/SnowCover.htm#Recent USA-Canada snow cover

Just a note: Reservoirs should not be at capacity right now if snowpack water equivalent is taken into account in above average areas. That is so melt does not cause down stream flooding. Lowering levels now gives the reservoirs the capacity to do what they were often built to do, hold and manage snow melt.

“RR Kampen says:
May 26, 2010 at 2:40 am
“Experts tell us that spring snowcover has seen rapid declines in the Northern Hemisphere over the last 20 years. As of today, western US snowpack averaged by state is 137 percent of normal.”
How large a fraction of the Northern Hemisphere comprises the western US?
Why suggest this fraction is 100%?
May 2010 in Holland was very cool. What does it suggest about hemispheric or global temperature? Nothing at all, of course. This cool May is just weather. So is snowcover this spring in that part of the US. Northern hemisphere snowcover has dropped far below normal, no?
Of course, everyone on this forum knows all this. So what is the motive for all this silliness? Could it be you are all trying to be first laughed at, then totally forgotten in order to give Al Gore en Kyoto uncriticisable freeway?”
Dear Mr Kampen,
Possibly also worth for you to mention that the current cold period started here, in the Netherlands, in November 2009 (coinciding with a certain climate conference) and has been caused by a persistent high pressure system over the North West Atlantic affecting the whole of North West Europe (UK, France, Germany, NL, Spain, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Sweden) which is a little unusual, or different to “usual” (whatever that is, e.g. the last thirty years)??. To dismiss observations actually concerning 6 months and hundreds of thousands of sq km. as “weather and not climate” doesnt appear to make much sense because, as I am sure you will agree, climate is in any case ultimately just a derived function of weather measurements, at a different time scale.
The problem with the “current situation” is always how to distinguish noise from long term signal. However, its doesnt seem to me in the current situation, seeing the limitations revealed with various “official” data sources, very wise to have a closed mind concerning new developments. Indeed it is very instructive to see how the (subjective) perception adds up to the “official” record (or not..)
So, despite your comments concerning “silliness”, Mr Kampen, my thanks to this blog, where, laughed at or not by you, these developments are discussed, no doubt with a lot of hot air and mistakes, but ultimately with some increase of individual knowledge for those open to it….
DM

That’s not snow – it’s the first fruits of the Stateswide Albedo Project (SAP) which is reflecting that nasty sunlight back into space where it belongs. Supporters of Ursus Bogus have dressed up in white polar-bear costumes and are lying down in protest at the failure of an otherwise caring and progressive government to tax fossil fuels to extinction and create millions of green jobs for illegal immigrants who really need them.

The SW is doing fine for snow as the article reports. In the WA however only the Olympics are well packed at over 200%, while Eastern WA is running a deficit with snow pack below 70% over most of the east side of the state (same with ID).
ftp://ftp.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/data/water/wcs/gis/maps/wa_swepctnormal_update.pdf
Most irrigated Ag is in Eastern WA, so there are still a few worries, but snow pack was down around 50% in the Cascades as late as March and has recovered quite a bit since then. A good deal of the irrigated Ag water comes from the Cascades, so all is not bad since they have snow pack of about 80-90% where the irrigation projects get their water.

BTW, where did global warming go? Maybe it fell in Arnolds couch cushions. It’s been a cold Spring here.

I have been watching Lake Shasta in Northern California data. To my surprise it has gained about 100 feet in elevation and is now only a foot and a half from full. This lake is enormous, 4.5 million acre feet. A good reason to celebrate, its not all gloom and doom out there.
http://www.shastalake.com/shastalake/

What’s interesting in California is that even though snowpack is 137% of normal, and much of the water for Southern California comes from the Sierra Nevada winter snowpack via the California Aqueduct system, the only thing you *ever* hear in the media lately in So.Cal is “We’re in a drought, please conserve water.” They’ve purchased billboards all over So.Cal, you see commercials, the local municipalities are even implementing new water restrictions. All this despite INCREASED precipitation statewide.

Joe says:
May 26, 2010 at 4:25 am
As an observation…does it not seem like mountainous areas have all been effected with increased precipitation and cooler than normal temperatures?
With the oceans being cooler, these would be effected first.

Joe, of course you mean “affected”, not “effected”.

Everyone and anyone who doubts AGW has to understand that the warming that started in 1850’s and continues to this day. Was in anticipation of increased output of C02 by mankind.
If for some reason the cooling trend continues this would be great news. It means that temps are starting to fall in anticipation that mankind has stopped emitting C02. Now since we can’t have a universe ending time paradox, it is imperative that the governments of the world, especially the ones from the West be given the power to enforce C02 cuts. This means that they have to tax and tax again, and they will probably have to imprison anyone who questions their methods for treason and crimes against humanity. It is the only way, and anybody who says differently is evil.
Furthermore the horrible personal attacks on our leaders need to stop, and the perpetrators punished for all time. Al Gore works hard, and he has worked on the side of good. What does it matter if he has a few perks at our expense. Yes Mann, and Jones and Briffa and Hansen lied to us, but it was all for a good cause, not like those meanyhead individuals that keep yammering for silly things like raw data, and the methods used to achieve uhhhh everything that they have achieved of course. They are great men, and like all great men they have thier failings. Pay no attention to our Great Leaders actions, they only have our best interests at heart. You know what they say, to make a hockey stick you have to break a few laws, both natural and Mannmade.

Yes, the desert is blooming this spring. I can attest to that. There is still snow showing on the southern side of Sierra Blanca. (12,000 ft. Southern New Mexico) It’s usually bare by now. I note that the increased snowpack is predominantly in the SW. BC and Alberta, not so much. But one spring does not make a trend. Let’s wait at least a couple of years, if not ten.

From the “Weather isn’t climate” department…. There’s been a persistent trough in the eastern Pacific this spring which usually means ridging in the east so that part of the continent has been warmer than average.
Still not a single 80 degree day at my location in the Sierra foothills of California. Last year we had 95 by this date. Rainfall is 120% of an average season at my house which ends June 30th.
Just checked some of the high Sierra roads. Hwy 4 is still closed due to snow. Hwy 120 over Tioga Pass in Yosemite is still closed with 4-6 feet of snow and rock slides and downed trees. Glacier Point road in Yosemite is still closed with 4 feet of snow on it. The Sierra received more snow last night and probably more tomorrow. In an average year these roads are open by Memorial Day weekend. Maybe 4th of July this year?
When it finally does stop raining and warms up the “Bad Fire Season Expected” headlines will start because the rain made the grass and brush grow like crazy.

“How large a fraction of the Northern Hemisphere comprises the western US?
Why suggest this fraction is 100%?”
I believe this year’s satellite data (same data used to show Arctic ice) showed greatest Northern Hemisphere snow cover since they started recording data in 1979.

Ed Zuiderwijk says:
May 26, 2010 at 2:25 am
“The rise in Lake Powel is good new for Vegas. Is there any info about the Utah salt planes, which periodically become lakes again? Time to prepare the sandbags in Salt lake City?”
This is a fascinating process: Each year, the salt flats become shimmering mirrors of 6 inch deep water. The water evaporates, leaving minerals behind, and late in the summer, they are the Bonneville Salt Flats, known for land speed records set there.
Here is a photo during the wet period.
http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/family-vacations-in-utah-5.jpg
and then dry:
http://www.westcountygazette.com/blog/uploaded_images/Salt-Flats-of-Utah-792990.jpg
http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/salt-3.jpg
The freeway is elevated thru this area.
And speaking of Global Warming, have a look at the size of Lake Bonneville before it all evaporated, leaving behind The Great Salt Lake. Makes Lake Powell look like a puddle!
http://www.bonnevilleshorelinetrail.org/geology/geologiclake.gif
But this was not related to the flood of 1983, which was caused by “City Creek” overload. The overflow was diverted thru the city via sandbagged streets and they made little bridges for us to drive over it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SLCfloodphoto.jpg
Salt Lake City

Western parts of continents show similar weather patterns.
In Spain reservoir capacity (quite large indeed) is nearly 85% ¡Fantastic!
¿See it in the news? Spain is officially supposed to get drier and drier, hotter and hotter…
http://www.embalses.net/ – interesting web it shows all the reservoirs, trends, variations, inflows, outflows, etc.

Salt Lake City just had it’s latest spring snow on record.

…and after all that discussion about “it’s” vs. “its” on the previous post… tsk tsk.
[Thank’s, fixed. ~dbs]

#
RR Kampen says:
May 26, 2010 at 5:46 am
R. de Haan, “The weatherman told his public this was due to a lack of rain.”
“That surprised me too. Correct, it was because of the cold. We did some analysis within the met community here and also ruled out the possibility they were different potatoes.
It is the cold. May 2010 is in the 5-10 percentile coldest and after the fairly warm weekend today is very cold indeed again.
http://www.knmi.nl/klimatologie/grafieken/maand/txgn/txgn260_201005.png
Today’s max may hardly exceed 12° C.”
That’s why farmers, independent weathermen and skeptics don’t buy the the AGW crap. They know when someone lies.

The small percentage of weatherman that tell us AGW is real do so because they fear losing their job if they say otherwise.
Others are paid to say AGW is real but most of them don’t act like it.
So what’s left is an absolute minority of people who do believe AGW is real but they are such a small crowd, too small to explain any “consensus” on the subject.
Therefore the consensus on AGW is a lie too.
Those who do or did believe AGW was real keep telling us that weather is not climate.
But with this we agree. Because it’s true.

RR Kampen says on May 26, 2010 at 7:57 am said:

Richard Sharpe on says May 26, 2010 at 7:25 am

Honestly, how hard is it to grasp the concept of cycles and that parts of a sine wave look like a downward or upward trend until you have enough data?

And how hard is it to grasp the concept of forcing on any cycle? Like: sin[x] + exp[a x], a a small positive constant?

It’s not, but you had better demonstrate that the exponential behavior is there, and the original poster was talking about a linear trend for a data set that looks to be shorter in (or close to) duration than one quarter of the period of the cycles involved.
In addition, we know that CO2 levels were higher in the past. Indeed, quite a bit higher, and we did not see unlimited exponential behavior, so I think your exponential forcing term requires some change.

Ed, from Portland,OR says:
May 26, 2010 at 7:25 am
I have been watching Lake Shasta . . .
Having not been in the Shasta area for about 30 years and seeking an update to my mental map of the region, I clicked on the link you provided, then the map links, but at a reasonable zoom to get the spatial context that Google link is useless. Try these coordinates in Google Earth (and turn of all the “stuff”):
40.760335, -122.372561
The mountain of like name is 45 miles (73 km) north and if you ask for Mount Shasta, CA via Google Earth you get the town 9 miles SW of the mountain.

Global Warming, Global Governance, Amazon forests for Carbon market…
Internationalize the Amazonia?
Below is an insightful response from the Brazilian Minister of Education, Chico
Buarque,. better known as a poet, composer and musician, in a visit to an US
university, Chico Buarque was asked about the possibility of ‘internationalise’
the Amazonia. His response highlights the complexity of the issue, the powers in
play, the threatened sovereignty of nations and the double standards applied
when deciding on these issues. It also reveals a humanist approach, honesty and
wisdom of a government minister such as Chico Buarque.
Internationalize the Amazonia?
Brazil’s Amazon basin, some 360 million hectares cleaved by the world’s largest
river, the Amazon, whose 80,000 kilometers in length is equal to the distance
between New York and Berlin, holds the planet’s greatest biodiversity reserve.
This unique, complex, exceptional ecosystem is a colossal Patrimony of
Humanity. Should it be internationalized?
Cristováo Buarque
During a debate in a US university over four years ago, a young US ecologist
asked Cristóvão Buarque, then the Workers Party governor of the Federal
District of Brasilia and currently Brazil’s minister of education, about his
ideas on internationalizing the Amazonia, so often described as the “lung of
humanity.” It was then and still is a theme strongly sustained in Washington’s
power circles. The young man said he hoped Buarque would answer with the vision
of a humanist rather than of a Brazilian. What he got was a response that was
both Brazilian and humanist.
“From a humanist perspective…”
“As a Brazilian I would always argue against internationalizing the Amazon Rain
Forest. Even though our government has not given this patrimony the care that
it deserves, it is still ours. As a humanist who fears the risks posed by the
environmental degradation the Amazon is suffering, I could imagine its
internationalization, just as I could imagine the internationalization of
everything else of importance to humanity.
If, from a humanist perspective, the Amazon must be internationalized, we should
also internationalize the world’s petroleum reserves. Oil is as important for
the well being of humanity as the Amazon is for our future. The owners of the
reserves, however, feel that they have the right to increase or decrease the
amount of oil production, as well as increase or lower the price per barrel.
The wealthy of the world feel they have the right to burn up this immense
patrimony of humanity.
In much the same way, the wealthy countries’ financial capital should be
internationalized. Since the Amazon Rain Forest is a reserve for all human
beings, no owner or country must be allowed to burn it up. The burning of the
Amazon is as serious a problem as the unemployment caused by the arbitrary
decisions made by global speculators. We cannot permit the use of financial
reserves to burn entire countries in the frenzy of speculation.
Before we internationalize the Amazon, I would like to see the
internationalization of all the world’s great museums. The Louvre should not
belong merely to France. The world’s museums are guardians of the most
beautiful pieces of art produced by the human genius. We cannot let this
cultural patrimony, like the natural patrimony of the Amazon, be manipulated
and destroyed by the whims of an owner or a country. A short time ago, a
Japanese millionaire decided to be buried with a painting by a great artist.
That painting should have been internationalized before this could happen.
The United Nations is holding the Millennium Summit parallel to this meeting,
but some Presidents had difficulties attending due to U.S. border-crossing
constraints. Because of this, I think that New York, as the headquarters of the
United Nations, should be internationalized. At least Manhattan should belong to
all humanity, as should Paris, Venice, Rome, London, Río de Janeiro, Brasilia,
Recife… Each city, with its unique beauty and its history, should belong to
the entire world, to all of humanity.
If the United States wants to internationalize the Amazon Rain Forest to
minimize the risk of leaving it in the hands of Brazilians, we should
internationalize its nuclear arsenals, if only because the country has already
demonstrated it is capable of using these arms, causing destruction thousands
of times greater than the deplorable burnings done in the forests of Brazil.
In their debates, the US presidential candidates have defended the idea of
internationalizing the world’s forest reserves in exchange for debt relief. We
should begin by using this debt to guarantee that each child in the world has
the opportunity to go to school. We should internationalize the children,
treating them, all of them, no matter their country of birth, as patrimony that
deserves to be cared for by the entire world. Even more than the Amazon deserves
to be cared for. When the world’s leaders begin to treat the poor children of
the world as a patrimony of humanity, they will not let them work when they
should be studying, die when they should be living.
As a humanist, I agree to defend the internationalization of the world. But, as
long as the world treats me as a Brazilian, I will fight for the Amazonia to
remain ours. Ours alone.”
http://naomicheckthisout.blogspot.com/

Just flew, PHX to MSP yesterday.
Right over some of the prime “ski ranges” of the Rockies.
Took photos if anyone is interested.
OBVIOUS SNOW COVER OVER MANY MOUNTAINS!
This is Near 1st of June.
There are going to be some folks skiing into August…
I live in MN. I hate to think what this means about Nov/Dec/Jan/Feb/March here…
Max

High temperature records being broken in Ontario. Low snow packs over the most of British Columbia.

Toronto heat wave:
I love watching the jet stream (and associated highs and lows) and how it wreaks havoc on the weather. The current snows in Alberta and Colorado and cool temperatures of the whole of the west of North America, and the hot weather on the east coast is simply a function of the position of the jet stream right now. It is flowing south in the west drawing cold air down along the west coast, then it turns north and is drawing warm Gulf and Mid-Atlantic air north along the east coast.
I am sure the meteorologists among this group are well aware of this phenomenon.
Also, rain and not snow pack determines most of the moisture input east of the Rockies. There were a number of “failed” hydro projects started on the prairies before it was realized that a good rainfall produced more run off than the spring melt. (Just look at the size of the culverts out in the Nevada and Arizona deserts sitting it dry washes.) For example, in one prairie study it was shown that one rainfall event contributed 85% of the total annual flow:
Precipitation
Precipitation differed by only 2% between the agricultural (1802 mm) and prairie (1767 mm) ecosystems for the 132-wk (924-d) period. In general, 1996 was wetter than 1997 at both study sites. A single intense rainfall during Week 2596 (subscript on week no. refers to appropriate year) delivered 103 mm to the prairie and 124 mm to the agricultural ecosystems. As a result, precipitation between May and June (335 mm) was more than twice the 30-yr average for precipitation during the 2 mo (163 mm) (Owenby and Ezell, 1992). The events of Weeks 396 and 2596 produced considerable runoff. For example, in the prairie, which was the only one of the three ecosystems to experience runoff during both Weeks 396 and 2596, the runoff during these 2 wk was estimated to be 85% of the annual total runoff.
From http://soil.scijournals.org/cgi/content/full/64/2/715
See also: http://www.ec.gc.ca/eau-water/default.asp?lang=En&n=E0399791-1
It’s the rain.
Snow pack is important, especially for the Pacific basin, but not always the driver.
Most of us can’t figure out weather or water balances, no wonder “climate” is so confusing.

I can see the south side of Mt. Baldy from Orange County where I live, a straight-line distance of 40 miles (64km). It’s unusual to see the top third of the mountain still snow covered in late May.

“After the fine tuning the maps, New Jersey State Climatologist and Rutgers University professor David Robinson found a 1990 decline in spring snow extent that we still see today.”
Confirmation bias anyone?

@kenji says:
May 26, 2010 at 11:31 am …
Kenji — You have to be very careful about using spring snowpack numbers as an indication of water supply potential. They usually have more to do with spring temperatures than the total seasonal precipitation (which is what is important).
Last year Obama’s Energy Secretary Steven Chu kicked up a huge fuss talking about a modeled 90% reduction in the April 1 California snowpack if the maximum IPCC-estimated warming came about, implying that this meant a comparable reduction in the available water supply. However, none of the models he relied on forecast any reduction in precipitation for California under these conditions, and most forecast an increase. All that the April 1 reduction meant is that the runoff from the mountains into the reservoirs would happen earlier in the year.
Several years ago, a UC Davis engineering study looked at the impact to the California water supply of several warming scenarios. Taking the extreme scenario used by Chu, and using the overly pessimistic (as they admit) assumption that no additional runoff before April 1 could be captured, they forecast a 15% decline in available water. Probably a more realistic value would be 10% (and this is in 100 years without any infrastructure improvements).
But this works both ways. The very high snowpack values you see now mostly reflect late snowmelt.

The snow pack may be at record level, and you good honest intelligent people are wondering how to convince the world that global warming is not happening. In the meantime Tony Blair is making hay while the sun shines.
The London Evening Standard today reports:
‘The former prime minister will be paid at least £700,000 a year to act as a “strategic adviser” to Khosla Ventures, a venture capitalist firm founded by Indian billionaire Vinod Khosla. The Californian company bankrolls businesses hoping to profit from technology that helps reduce global warming and carbon emissions’.
Let’s hope that even as the snow refuses to melt, the global financial melt will change bankroll to bankrupt and end this scam.

Anybody know how Lake Mead is doing?

Lake Powell is up 4 ft in the last month. If you look at data from other years, you will see that either the snowpack in the Rockies and Wind Rivers is low, or that the melt has not really started yet, which would make it late. Lake Powell will rise about a foot a day in peak snow melt. That is when they get 100,000+ CFS in Cataract Canyon, and wave train in the Big Drops is the stuff of legend.
The Colorado is a puny little river, but in May-June it is the raging Colorado.
http://graphs.water-data.com/lakepowell/

I groan when I read that scientists predict some catastrophe based on their modelling of whatever subject.
As a scientist myself, I appreciate the power of modelling, yet there is a huge difference between a model based on known relationships and one which is based on assumptions or speculation.
The former should predict reality, the latter could predict anything at all. Yet, modelling is not just a calculation, it is an attempt to simulate an interactive, complex system. It seeks to answer the question “what if” and it can provide the means to measure the degree of understanding being applied, provided the results can be confirmed in reality.
Perhaps it is this last point that is important. A model is no good if it cannot predict reality. Some systems may be modelled and tested and this is the ideal. Others are deemed good if they can reproduce the outcome of past events. Alas, every financial modeller must realise that the past is not a good guide to the future. Climate scientists generally predict events that may lie beyond our lifetimes.
So where does that leave the science of modelling? A starting point would be to establish the accepted relationships and those that are based on assumptions. The assumptions need to be justified, otherwise we get into a whole new ball game.
Imagine you are creating the rules of a new computer game. Are you on the side of the bad guy or the good guy? If you are completely objective, the game will probably be boring. If you are creating a climate model, to what extent will your beliefs and prejudices influence the relationships that you assume? Will your model accurately mirror your prejudice? Of course it will. Is that objective science?
Is it any sort of science?
Perhaps modelling is valid when the scientist is scrupulously neutral. As soon as he or she becomes even subconsciously biased, then the objectivity is lost, the science is lost and the answer is the one that was wanted all along.
We might as well decide to install windmills on the toss of a coin. If it is heads, the warmists can install windmills. If it tails, we do no such thing. You are a warmist. It comes up tails.
“Best of three,” I hear you say.
I would be interested to hear a debate on this subject, particularly if modellers could comment on their experience of how to deal with the expectation of the paymaster.

Mari Warcwm, at May 26, 2010 at 12:54 pm
Global warming stocks are not faring so well these days. With oil prices low, they are likely to never compete without government mandates or massive subsidies.
http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/global-warming-funds-as-investments.html

The picture here has perhaps been going on for a couple months. Cool in the western US and skipping spring and going straight into summer in the midwestern US and, as noted above, Ontario.
http://mapcenter.hamweather.com/records/3day/us.html?c=maxtemp,mintemp,lowmax,highmin
I also read somewhere that the Jan through April global temps are the highest in the modern record.

They are trying to get the trail ridge road open in Colorado open for Memorial Day weekend

You might want to check that Arizona figure back against the data

jorgekafkazar says:
May 26, 2010 at 10:04 am
“…Schwarzenegger heads a state that, if it were a country, would rank among the 10 biggest economies in the world….”
He’ll soon fix THAT! Back to Hollywood with him!
_________________________________________________________________________
Gee I thought Schwarzenegger already had with the California AB32 greenhouse gas law
The results of California’s “green Policies”
Collapse of Tax Revenue has left California near Bankruptcy
Fiorina suggests California consider Bankruptcy
Rasmussen: Only 27% of nationwide voters believe federal government should bailout California. 55% say let the state go bankrupt.
Unemployment tops 20% in eight California counties
EPA Regulations Cause Drought in California – some farming towns like Mendota seeing unemployment numbers near 40% The area affected is the size of more than half of Denmark.
Flood Of California Businesses Abandon State

Milwaukee Bob says:
May 26, 2010 at 10:23 am
PeterB in Indianapolis said at 9:08 am
Everyone should remember, NO ONE experiences “climate”.
Well, actually we do. While technically “climate” is a made up condition found only in the mind of homo sapiens and their off-spring – computers, thereby making it impossible to “experience” as it doesn’t exist, it is by definition and in reality an average of weather. Therefore, when experiencing weather we ARE – experiencing climate.
__________________________________________________________________________
As another commenter said. Weather is the derivative of climate. (mathmatically)

I can attest to Mt. Baldy here in SoCal being still snowed in. It is not visible
from this seat, but if I go to the garage I can see it.
There is some disconnect with the water agencies here in California.
A few years back here in SoCal we created a new reservoir Diamond Valley Lake,
which gets its water from Shasta at the other end of the state. Although Shasta
is 15 inches from cresting the dam, Diamond Valley reports 100 feet below full.
It will be interesting to learn the the combined Powell/Mead fullness on July 1,
2010.

Ross M says:
May 25, 2010 at 11:25 pm
Averaging state percentages doesn’t seems like a good way to Western snow cover – they are all different sizes. The first link doesn’t do it this way, so the comparison is invalid.
Sure Ross, there isn’t anything that means anything in this global warming world…… except co2 is going to bring disasters to the world. We know the drill.

tonyb says:
May 26, 2010 at 12:07 am
Still unusually good snow at Cairngorm mountain in Scotland after record winter snow fall
Wow, I didn’t know this was true in Scotland too. Maybe we really are heading into a time of cooling. with warming having ended in 2001.

Gail Coombs 4:41
Temperature map for the US yesterday below, heat warnings in Toronto today. Snow forecast for areas of Alberta tomorrow.
http://www.wunderground.com/US/Region/US/MaxTempp1Day.html

It’s always Marcia, Marcia says:
Sure Ross, there isn’t anything that means anything in this global warming world…… except co2 is going to bring disasters to the world. We know the drill.
sandyinderby says:
You’ve seen Anthony’s figures now let us see yours.
—
No need for figures, IMO the maths is wrong. I’m skeptical of the method.
e.g say we have n states, where the snow cover percentage for each state is s(n) and the area of each state is a(n).
Total snow cover is therefore sum{ s(n) * a(n) } / sum { a(n) }
Averaging by state is sum{ s(n) } / n which will give a different result.
Or have I made a mistake?

BillD says:
May 26, 2010 at 2:32 pm
I also read somewhere that the Jan through April global temps are the highest in the modern record.
Should have provided a reference, don’t you think? Would help people believe you.

It’s always Marcia, Marcia says:
May 26, 2010 at 5:34 pm
tonyb says:
May 26, 2010 at 12:07 am
Still unusually good snow at Cairngorm mountain in Scotland after record winter snow fall
Wow, I didn’t know this was true in Scotland too. Maybe we really are heading into a time of cooling. with warming having ended in 2001.
__________________________________________________________________________
It is not just the USA, Scotland, New Zealand, Spain, Russia but also China and the worse hit was Mongolia where six million head of livestock died this winter.
But do not worry, The Klimate Psychientists are telling us this year will be the “warmest ever”

Wayne Delbeke says:
May 26, 2010 at 5:51 pm
Gail Combs 4:41
Temperature map for the US yesterday below, heat warnings in Toronto today. Snow forecast for areas of Alberta tomorrow.
http://www.wunderground.com/US/Region/US/MaxTempp1Day.html
__________________________________________________________________________
Wunderground temperatures for my city were “adjusted up” the next day from 1F to 5F last year. I got suspicious so I checked. Also all the old records got purged and are no longer available on line. The oldest year I can get now is 2004.
Normally I see snow once every four or five years. This year we had FIVE snowstorms and Washington DC got plastered when Obama tried to come home from Copenhagen.
I ran through all the available data for May for my city on another post. In May, 20 days were 90F or above in 2004 – three or four were 98F and I think another seven were above 95F. So far this is the coolest May for my area in the records available to me with three days at 91F and all the rest below 90F. Also the corn is only six inches high instead of the usual waist high at this time of year. (part of that was lack of rain in April)
That is the data I am basing my statement on for MY city (actually county since I live in the boonies) I think it is the midwest that may have been warmer this spring but I am not sure. It certainly is not my area. Heck it is almost June and I still haven’t bothered to use the A/C.

Why wouldn’t you bother to mention what an El Nino tends to do for snowfall in the America Southwest? Late spring snowfall is common even for places like Colorado during El Nino phases. This post is very misleading, and employs the same tactics as seen in alarmist reportings.
Too bad the snowfall didn’t happen when the ski resorts were still open though…

The maths used in this post make no sense whatsoever. Example: state a) has 100% coverage at 100 sq.m, state b) at 10 sq. m.
If on a given year, state a has 50% that’s 50 sq. m. If that same year state b has 200%, that’s 20 sq.m. The total coverage would be 70sq. m, which is about 64% for both states combined. However, using Goddard’s method, one would find 125%. Percentages can not be averaged by themselves.

Phil M, there are plenty of people (commenters and posters) on WUWT who are quite competent at water resource issues. You won’t make any friends with that tone you adopted.
As just one (of many) resources, California’s lakes are already brimming this year, and the snow has not melted. Water managers are running water through the dams and into the oceans at prodigious rates. see
http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-progs/current/RES

I got .62inches this week in a part of Montana, Helena Valley, that averages about 7 inches/year. .32 inches were today in two thunderstorms that swept the area. Snow line is at about 5,500 feet in the mountains according to my eyeball estimate. I hope it dries out and warms up enough to plant the tomatoes and peppers this weekend. And then also dries out enough so that I can get the job in Malta, MT done, but they got 1.5 inches of rain this past week. This should be a good year if your wheat is in the ground.

And, as several common taters have observed, you’ll get a good quick read of real (i.e. able to be made $ from) snow conditions from skifields. The ski reports and webcams aren’t subject to the biasses of Gubmint drones, and are generally not UHI, either, for some reason.
Here in the SH, our southern NZ fields are <a href="http://www.nzski.com/newsletter.jsp?id=71246543-0DA7-4D32-9023-192F50695A09&quot; title = "preparing for a good season", and currently on the east coast of the South Island, literally at the beach, there are freezing showers, hailstones and slushy raindrops, coming out of clouds propelled by a southerly straight out of Antarctica.
So one can just imagine what the mountain basins are like, and in a few short weeks, there’ll be the click of boots on bindings, and we can report back for real….
Just like plants, crops and animals, skifield webcams don’t lie.

Here is what the trails will look like for Memorial Day Weekend in the mountains of Wallowa County. Wonder if morel mushrooms thrive in this.
http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=45.17041997262667&lon=-117.2735595703125&site=pdt&smap=1&unit=0&lg=en&FcstType=text

@richard Sharpe (May 26, 2010 at 7:25 am)
“Honestly, how hard is it to grasp the concept of cycles and that parts of a sine wave look like a downward or upward trend until you have enough data?”
Not hard at all. The only problem is that a sine wave of the kind you seem to be postulating doesn’t seem to be in existence unless you mean the grand cycle of glacials and interglacials on the scale of millenia.
For the time being, this site seems to be promoting an oscillation of a different kind where Phase A is “It’s not warming at all, it’s cooling” (for every time there’s a downward blip), followed by Phase B, “Oh, this bit of warming is all part of a sine wave, nothing to worry about” (for every time there’s a substantial incline in global temperatures or a decline in Arctic sea ice cover).

For those who like to track such things, here is my favorite for tracking snow levels, expressed in water equivalents, in Colorado.
http://www.co.nrcs.usda.gov/snow/snow/watershed/current/daily/maps_graphs/swe_time.html

Snow cover area, thickness and durability is very important regarding rapid climate change. Snow is highly reflective and bounces much of the energy from the sun back into space, so cooling our planet. It also has a high enthalpy and it takes much solar / atmospheric energy to melt it.
Because of this we have seen a much later NH Spring, and here in the UK the ‘Spring bloom’ was around a month late compared to recent years. There is a real risk to food production if we get an early winter, as the growing season will be too short to get a good harvest.

Pamela Gray says: Alfalfa is another concern as well. Too much rain and you get moldy hay. However, you can put it up wet and let it “mash”. Cows love it. Kinda difficult to bail up and ship though.
E.M.Smith says:
Maybe I’m missing something… My Dad always said wet hay fermented and caused barn fires. I know, alfalfa ain’t hay, and you did say hard to bail… So what keeps it from heating up in the barn? Or do you just make small piles and feed it up quick?
Probably ensiling it outside in the open. Around here farmers dig pits and shred corn/whatever. Pile it in the pit and let it ferment. Sunflower silage is a favorite for many because of the oil.

E.M.Smith says:May 26, 2010 at 11:19 pm
IIRC, the exporters are: Canada, USA, Australia, Argentina, Ukraine, Brazil
(But that’s from memory of something about 20 years ago, so YMMV…)
Your memory encompasses about 95% of world agricultural exports. Well done. If you want to know the precise numbers (or trade commodities), this is a gud govmint website:
http://commodities.about.com/gi/o.htm?zi=1/XJ&zTi=1&sdn=commodities&cdn=money&tm=18&gps=206_598_1259_825&f=00&su=p649.3.336.ip_&tt=2&bt=0&bts=0&zu=http%3A//usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/MannUsda/viewDocumentInfo.do%3FdocumentID%3D1079

I give up.
[Fixed. ~dbs]

Smokey says:
May 26, 2010 at 7:10 pm
Jack Simmons,
Report back. And remember:
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will sit in a boat all day, drinking beer.
ROFLOL

Mike says:May 27, 2010 at 9:10 am
Did you folks read the initial article A linked to?
http://news.discovery.com/earth/snow-cover-shrinking-maps.html
Did you understand what you read, or are you just cherry picking phrases? Here’s the rest.
The discovery of a sharp decline in late winter and early spring snow
cover starting in the 1980s until 1990 was revealed after researchers
made overdue adjustments to decades of daily snow cover maps.
After the fine tuning the maps, New Jersey State Climatologist and
Rutgers University professor David Robinson found a 1990 decline in spring
snow extent that we still see today.
“It has remained lower over the past 20 years compared to the previous 20 years in
North America and Eurasia,” he said.
No decline since 1990.
http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/chart_anom.php
?ui_set=0&ui_region=nhland&ui_month=4
And CO2 has done what since 1990? No correlation here, move along.

EM said – {The reality is that they can be reused within reason,}
Have put down quarts of blackberry jam using plastic wrap and rubber bands for the lid. Apply while jam is still warm, ans as long as the lid is concave, good to go!
Enjoy

Phil M. says: May 26, 2010 at 5:40 pm ….blah blah blah ackphhht blah…
sorry to pick on phil, but this post exemplifies quite a few posts i noticed in the thread.
this is the opinion of someone who just doesn’t know what they are talking about. phil may be smart as hell and well educated, or even an h2o expert. but in this specific case all of this is refuted by FACTS. this is the problem and bias within much of science today, a severe disconnect separating esoteric theory from actual observation.
as someone who lives, works, and travels in the southwest, i assure you from actual observations and experience, recent and current, that the mountains of the desert southwest, south of most of those in nevada, are still covered in unusually, surprisingly large quantities of snow. San Francisco peaks of northern arizona are especially and astonishingly vivid. you can see them from virtually everywhere north of the mogollan rim.
and as i write this, it is 25F below normal and snowing.

I can’t imagine what you found offensive in my May 26th post – certainly nothing was intended! My point was simple, snotel shows the May 26th snowpack in Arizona to be at <25% of normal for the three basins that have snowpack this time of year. Maybe I am reading the data wrong since this does not agree with your 446% figure. I only sought clarification. The error could have been mine.

The only thing that Arnold is famous for in any and all Disabled Kalifornia State Residents Homes is the fact that; “We all have had $100.00 and more ripped from our Disability Awards, which money actually came off of all of OUR Dinner Tables!” Thanks Arnold, you are really a stand-up guy! Taking money away from a Disabled Persons measly Award must make you very proud! I will Boycott any and all Arnold Movies from this date on!

GeoFlynx says: May 28, 2010 at 9:20 am
* = Data are not available or data may not provide a valid measure
of conditions
and therein lies the rub
i saw these same graphs, which after having just been in Flag, i knew to be inaccurate. i searched and searched and could not find any data points for where the actual snow is. you would think NAU would at least have something up there.
i also have it on authority from the dirtbag climber network that at least as of a few weeks ago, the high ranges of southeast AZ and south NM also still have snow on them. it was what we call a split flow year, most of the storms came in from socal/n baja (where several new highway bridges washed out), hence the large snowpacks. the persistently snowy desert ranges really stand out this year. at one point ski apache had more snow than mammoth.
don’t know where anthony got his numbers

4″ of snow fell at the weekend here in Scotland. Ski season extended into June – fantastic.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20100601/tod-scottish-skiers-enjoy-the-snow-in-ju-870a197.html