From The Declining Spring Snowcover Department
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.
According to USDA Snotel measurements, Arizona is 446% of normal. California is 131% of normal. New Mexico is 184% of normal. Nevada is 126% of normal. Montana is 104% of normal.
Lake Powell water levels have risen four feet in the last month and are 56 feet higher than they were on this date in 2005.
http://lakepowell.water-data.com/graphingengine.php?graphing=1+back_days=150
Salt Lake City just had its latest spring snow on record. Mammoth is expecting a big Memorial Day snow storm.
The Obama administration (42% approval) forecasts heat and drought for the western US. Let’s see how they are doing!
http://www.hprcc.unl.edu/products/maps/acis/wrcc/WaterTDeptWRCC.png
http://www.hprcc.unl.edu/products/maps/acis/wrcc/WaterPNormWRCC.png
Apparently Arnie’s efforts to stop global warming have been successful.
Schwarzenegger has emerged as a national leader on global warming, the one whose name most frequently comes up in foreign capitals when international cooperation on reducing carbon emissions is discussed. Al Gore might have a Nobel Prize, but Schwarzenegger heads a state that, if it were a country, would rank among the 10 biggest economies in the world. Given the Bush administration’s unwillingness to seriously address the problem, Schwarzenegger’s initiatives to mandate hard emissions targets and set up carbon-trading schemes with other states and Canadian provinces make him this country’s most forward-thinking governor, and its greenest Republican.
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Okay, I’ll bite. I’ll go check on the Wallowa River. Just to see if the flow is good of course.
By the way, wheat needs an end of the growing season dry period to reduce its moisture and not sprout on the stalk. So I will wait to declare whether or not this will be a good year for wheat.
I am already thinking that we will have snow every month somewhere on the valley floor this summer. It’s happened before.
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.
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
Gail Combs says:
“This lack of emergency preparedness is the fault of the 1996 farm bill [written by a VP of Cargill, the grain traders]which eliminated the government’s grain reserves as well as the Farmer Owned Reserve (FOR),” explained Matlack….” http://www.marketskeptics.com/2009/07/us-govt-completely-out-of-wheat.html
For those who think I have been blowing smoke the last few years because of my concern about the food supply…
Well, that’s not good…
FWIW, I share your concern. With the “just in time” global food system we have about 1 month of food in ‘storage’ and that’s it. One crop failure in any one hemisphere (and there are only about 6 significant food exporting countries) and the world is in a ‘world of hurt’. My “nightmare” scenario is a large rock fall from space into the Pacific that swamps and sinks most of the shipping. We would still have the food, just no transport between continents… and it would take a few years to rebuild it. This WILL happen. “When” is the only question. Ought to be once every couple of thousand years.
IIRC, the exporters are: Canada, USA, Australia, Argentina, Ukraine, Brazil
(But that’s from memory of something about 20 years ago, so YMMV…)
In case of cold induced food shortages, the main losers are likely to be the highly populated and poor nations. Most of Africa, Asia south and east of Russia including India. The folks with buckets of money can probably still buy food (i.e. Oil Exporting Countries – otherwise the Middle Eastern muslims who are vastly overpopulating the carrying capacity of their lands would be ‘toast’, but instead will give “oil for food” a whole new meaning… ) while the biggest question marks will hang over Europe.
In a cold excursion, Europe tends to have a very large failure of agriculture. Given the high population density, there ought to be extreme famine and death. However, they have relatively high levels of money… So ought to be able to ‘out bid’ Africa and most Latin American countries for food. Then again, I could easily see Brazil and Argentina choosing to ship food to Columbia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Paraguay, etc. rather than have border wars. But I could also see Australia shipping grains to Europe in exchange for ‘protection’ via a European fleet from various hungry “neighbors” a bit more north of them…
The “good news” is that we can make our grain go about 5 times further than at present by eating it, instead of feeding it to animals and eating them. So I’m not so worried about a global inability to find enough food. I’m much more worried about the ability to convince a Frenchman to skip his prime rib and instead ship corn to Somalia…
Have I mentioned lately that Economics is named “The Dismal Science”? It’s because this is the kind of thing we study a lot… Malthus was an economist…
Plant your gardens now folks and brush up on your canning skills….
Well, I already have a garden… but for most folks the simplest and fastest bit of ‘preparedness’ they can do is to go buy several packages of seeds. Choose non-hybrid “heirloom” types that will open pollinate. Put them in an old glass jar, close the lid, and put it in your freezer. Seeds stored this way will keep for many many years. ( I’ve planted some that were 16 years old. That’s the longest I’ve stored…) You can store a dozen years worth of seeds in one jar pretty easily (for a small garden) and since these are open pollinated types, you can collect and replant your own seeds. ( I now make more seeds net each year than I plant. Basically, my ‘seed archive’ is now only for restarting a purebred line if I get genetic contamination.) A quart jar is big enough for most folks.
Best for beginners are things with large seeds. Corn, beans, peas. (though finding non-hybrid corn can take some looking). It also takes a couple of years to get good at any one kind of plant and learn how to save seeds well. So after you have some seeds, do start a small practice garden, even if it’s only a 4 x 4 foot square or a couple of small tubs. Also note that for cold climates, root crops are better (turnips, radishes, potatoes, parsnips, carrots) and can take a while to get good at growing and producing seeds. For places with lots of snow, Kale is your friend. It will grow under light snow… Pumpkin and squash are prolific and the seeds are good in storage; but they take a lot of dirt area. You need a legume or a nut for a decent protein and oil (fatty acid) supply and it can be valuable to have a nut tree already growing (orchards trees take a decade or so to make significant yield…) so don’t decide to wait on them… (but pumpkin seeds can substitute for nuts often) Also, for what it’s worth, lentils are a pain to harvest, but grown darned quick and easy and the seeds keep a long time. Beets are fairly hardy and easy to grow (and both root and tops are edible). Finally, buckwheat is a traditional ‘catch crop’ for something quick when the regular crop fails. Lentils, buckwheat, and radishes may not be your idea of a normal diet, but they are very fast to yield… with some spinach and squash added, you have a decent diet, too.
If that doesn’t appeal to you, at the grocers just buy a bag each of lentils, beans, popcorn, barley (not pearled, go to Whole Foods or equivalent and get whole grains), and brown rice (if you live in a warm wet place) whole oats or wheat berries and put them in jars in your kitchen shelf. Learn to cook with them. As long as you have 1/2 a jar left, you can plant a large area “if it comes to that”… It’s not ideal, but it’s better than nothing.)
Yeah, I’m “into this stuff”. What can I say. Raised by two survivors of The Great Depression (who instilled in me their hunger experiences, while stuffing me to the gills on great food 😉 and in a Mormon Town to boot (and while not a Mormon, I appreciate what they taught about preparation for bad times…)
For folks wanting to know more, including how to make a “do it yourself” food storage system for darned near no money (buy in bulk, store dry goods in jars) see:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/04/06/food-storage-systems/
BTW, canning is surprisingly easy. Most country hardware stores have the Ball Blue Book of Canning as do most Wal-Mart stores. That’s a good place to start. And even if you just buy fresh bulk in season and can your own, it tastes better and you can keep costs down. FWIW, the major cost item is the lids at way too much each ( $.25 or so) and they harp that you can not re-use them or you will die immediately. The reality is that they can be reused within reason, and in an emergency I’d be willing to do so. Just make sure the ‘paint’ on the inside of the lid is not scratched. I typically use ‘re-used’ lids for experimental batches of things (where it won’t sit on the shelf for a year, more like a day or a week) and for dry goods storage. Been doing it for about 2 decades now and I’m still breathing 😉 Wal-mart looks to have the best prices. Also, fwiw, Classico brand sauces come in real Atlas-Mason jars (as does a house brand jam at Whole Foods) and these are real canning jars. They work great. So while I own several dozen “Ball” and “Kerr” jars, you don’t need to ever buy a single jar if you are patient… and like spaghetti and jam… In an emergency you can use other thiner jars too. There is a slight increase in risk of breakage, but as long as you don’t tighten the lids too much you will not have breakage problems anyway.
Oh, and for most folks, learning to dry food would be as valuable as learning to can.
Well, enough on that. If you care, the information is available. It’s not hard and it doesn’t cost anything (increased buying efficiency pays the freight). If you don’t care, well, that’s your choice.
Just realize that at least 2 Ph.D.s have made predictions that we start a new little ice age about 2014 and it reaches it’s deepest point about 2040. FWIW, I think they are right. Their science looked pretty solid to me. One based on solar theoretical work, the other based on Wavelet analysis of the historical solar and temperature data. When theoretical and direct historical data analysis lead to the same point, I tend to think that someone has something right.
By the way how do you build a guillotine????/sarc
No need. Just store some food, and when they come to the door, say “Sorry, we’re starving too” 😉
BTW: For those who would like to paint this as some kind of strange paranoid behaviour, please note: I very much HOPE that we have continued warm weather as at present. I don’t EXPECT a grand catastrophe and I’m CONFIDENT that the world can find a way to share the resources so that no one need suffer unduly if a major cold event happens. But I’m still going to be prepared… It’s the prudent thing to do. If it makes you feel better, think of it as applying the “precautionary principle”… just in case hope, expectations, and confidence are not enough…
At worst, I’ve cut my food bill due to higher efficiencies and I’ve kept alive skills my ancestors cherished while entertaining myself with some pleasant hobbies. If you still want to think I must be crazy, then realize that I’ve been certified sane and remarkably well balanced. (It’s a long story involving being a test subject in a medical study with a battery of psych profiles and such). I am, literally, a model of sanity and the profile developed is used to select folks for high stress challenging work environments. It’s only prudent to prepared for events of reasonable probability where the result of not preparing is catastrophic and the cost is nil.
@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).
Phil M. says: I have also pointed out to you (and most everyone else on this blog) your propensity for confounding weather and climate.
Unfortunately, the confounding of weather and climate was set forth by the “climate scientists” of the AGW movement when they decided to call the 30 year average of weather ‘climate’. Real climate is dependent on your latitude, altitude, distance to water, and topography and darned near nothing else. It is certainly NOT a 30 year average of weather (especially when we have known 60 year PDO cycles and 200 year solar cycles and 1500 year Bond Events and…) Things like “Mediterranean” and “Desert” and “Alpine” and “Tropical” and… are NOT based on 30 years averages of weather and ARE the correct definition of climate.
So, in truth, a “Mediterranean Climate” existed in Rome during the Roman Optimum and during the Little Ice Age and during the MWP and the Iron Age Cold Period and even now, during the Modern Optimum. And it will continue to be there during the coming cold period too.
But the AGW folks want to call short duration averages of weather ‘climate’, so that opens the door for haggling over the number of years that qualify. To me, if you want to hold up 20 out of the last 30 years as a “Warming Climate” (the last 10 have been cooling) then it is perfectly reasonable to say that excess cold and snow now is evidence of a cooling ‘climate’.
But if you want to admit that California is now, has been for the last several thousand years, and will be in the next couple of thousand years, the same climate that it always has been during the holocene, hey, I’m ready to agree. (Mediterranean with Alpine mountains and desert out back). We can call “Climate Change” a bunch of bunk based on the broken definition from the get-go and all go home.
But if you want to base “Climate Change” on a 30 year average of weather, then I’m happy to base it on “137% of Snowfall”. Since in both cases were just using a different averaging period and both of them are equally broken. And since your guys have already set that “rule”, guess you’re gonna have to live with the consequences…
jeff brown says: 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…
Speaking of misleading… Are you saying that the ski resorts all closed before the snow season or what? Can’t be that the snow came too late, as some places are STILL open:
http://www.mammothmountain.com/ResortActivities/SpecialEvents/MemorialDay/
We’re bringing the beach party to the snow May 29 and 30!
Celebrate Memorial Day weekend with live music by Almost Famous and DJ Slipmatt, snow-beach volleyball, beer pong, an ice drinking luge, mechanical bull rides, drinks specials and an après party at Hyde!
…
Saturday, May 29
8am Lifts Open – get some turns in to start the day!
11am Party begins:
…
3:00pm Lifts Close- everybody head to The Mill Café, The Yodler or the sundeck at Tusks Bar
…
Sunday, May 30
8am Lifts Open – Recovery day!
11am Party begins:
…
3:00pm Lifts Close- everybody head to The Mill Café, The Yodler or the sundeck at Tusks Bar
Third Night Free!
Stay two nights at any Mammoth slope-side property and the third is on us!
I’m hoping they stay open in June, just for the heck of it…
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
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.
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?
(And yes, I’ve played on ‘very warm bails’ in the barn… that’s where I asked the question… which lead to a lesson in unstacking bails in said barn, and despite the thanks for noticing, a personal resolution to never mention warm bails of hay again 😉
FWIW, it snowed on me near L.A. this last weekend:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2010/05/23/freaky-snow-in-california-in-may/
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.
“It’s always Marcia, Marcia says:
May 26, 2010 at 5:51 pm
Hoppy says:
May 26, 2010 at 6:15 am
If you’re such a stickler for co… blah, blah, blah”
What makes you such an expert in the views of Homo-Hoppy? You don’t know me, you know nothing about me. Well, a bit like the worst blind date ever, lets start to get to know one another. I cannot stand hypocrisy. You must favour it I presume, no matter how much it further dirties the issues involved?
My point was valid. Cherry picking is cherry picking. It is an alarmist headline with no real substance.
p.s. Marcia – are you free next Wednesday for a drink, maybe food, back to my place to compare hockeysticks?
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.
Jack Simmons says:May 27, 2010 at 12:18 am
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
U cun trus that cit becuz it s govment sorce i wuk fr.
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
That posted funky on my govmint computer. Here is is agian.
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]
E.M.
The reality is that they can be reused within reason, and in an emergency I’d be willing to do so. Just make sure the ‘paint’ on the inside of the lid is not scratched. I typically use ‘re-used’ lids for experimental batches of things (where it won’t sit on the shelf for a year, more like a day or a week) and for dry goods storage. Been doing it for about 2 decades now and I’m still breathing 😉
A good trick I learned from ma was to set the jars in warm 120 F water for 30 minutes or so before use. It reduces the vacuum and effort needed to remove the lids and as you know, bending the seal casting can be an issue. For pickles and such you may need to cool back down. I wonder if any of the youngsters on this site know how to use or even have a church key? ;~P
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
Did you folks read the initial article A linked to?
http://news.discovery.com/earth/snow-cover-shrinking-maps.html
“It may not seem so in many places today, but North America and Eurasia’s snow cover has shrunk, according to study of more than 40 years of weather satellite-based snow cover maps.”
“… the snow cover is leaving earlier but is just as extensive in winter and fall. This, said Robinson, is just how models have suggested climate should be changing snow cover and matches other research that has found earlier warming and greening up of the land in spring.”
At any given time you can point to one area where regional climate is cooler than normal. The point of AGW is that it is global. Global and data over longer time lines back up the theory. That so many of you would regard Anthony’s comments as evidence against AGW, shows that you are not open to evidence that is consistent with AGW. No one event or season or study can prove AGW is a fact, but most of the evidence points that way.
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.
Northern Sierra SNOWPACK is currently 318% of ‘normal’ THREE HUNDRED EIGHTEEN percent !!
Statewide CA SNOWPACK is 194% of ‘normal’ ONE HUNDRED NINETYFOUR percent !! … nearly TWICE the ‘normal’ SNOWPACK
http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cdecapp/snowapp/sweq.action
annnnnnnnnd Reservoir storage is wayyyyyyyy above-normal for MOST of the states reservoirs
http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cdecapp/resapp/getResGraphsMain.action
annnnnnnnnd EVEN MORE rain and snow is coming to CA …
http://www.intellicast.com/National/Radar/Current.aspx?location=USNV0076&animate=true
http://video.dot.ca.gov/asx/d3-Soda-Springs-EB-80.asx
http://www.intelliweather.net/imagery/intelliweather/sat_goes10fd_580x580_img.htm
Yet … useless bureaucrats in the state dept. of drought mongering and global warmist shilling … INSIST that CA is in the grips of “year 4” of a “drought” and that the state is “dry”. These LIARS should all be FIRED for politicizing their “science”. drought ? … reallllllllly ? dry ? … reallllllly ?
http://www.water.ca.gov/drought/
STOP LYING to the public !!
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
How about the nearest station to us,341% of normal.
notice the peak, one month past normal. and it hasn’t been going anywhere, and we still have at least a few days of winter left, apparently.
last weekend, we got 8″ of global warming.
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.
Tim Clark says: 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:
Golly! Noggin still works… and thanks for the link, I do trade commodities sometimes.
Link without “About.com” wrapper:
http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/MannUsda/viewDocumentInfo.do?documentID=1079
Top level:
http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/MannUsda/homepage.do
Per “church key”, remember to ‘lift’ straight up, not ‘lever’ in rotation as that bends the lid… OH,and if you make a stack of them and roll it on edge on a counter, the little ‘flange’ that forms on opening gets rolled back into shape. Also, warmed in a boiling water bath, the ‘rubber’ will soften and flow back to the normal position.
So far the only limit I’ve found on re-use is rusting in any place where the enamel has been scratched. On my ‘todo’ list is to find a food grade enamel formula… Oh, and hand wash with a sponge and soap only, no dishwasher. The dishwasher soap does a number on enamel lifetime…
@DeNihilist: Thanks! Nice to know for ‘that day’. Good alternative to expensive wax for things like jams. (not so useful for green beans 😉
FWIW, I’ve canned meat, fish, and stew all with a 1:20 minute canning time for pints and 1 hour for cup size jars. Somewhere I’ve got a write-up on canning meats and stews at home… You can cut the time down if you add some acid, but really need a pH meter to be exact. Maybe I’ll put up a page…. Also found an article about canning for a ‘Victory Garden’ published by the USA during other ‘hard times’. Formulas for canning in a wash tub(!) with times for boiling water bath canning of things like green beans that ran out to a couple of hours. Don’t intend to ever use it (as there is some risk) but again a nice-to-know if your pressure cooker is gone and you have food to store and no alternative.
Ah, there it is:
http://www.earthlypursuits.com/WarGarV/HomeCan1919/HomeCanDryVE32.htm
The whole manual is a quite good introduction to a Victory Garden:
http://www.earthlypursuits.com/WarGarV/WarGardTitle.htm
Ah, the good old days 😉
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.
My May 26th post:
Anthony – This is the Snotel Data for Arizona that you referenced on your site. The only Arizona data is from San Francisco Peaks Basin and I can’t seem to find where you came up with the 446% of normal figure. The Arizona State Snotel Map for May 26, 2010 at the link below shows this area to have less than 50% SWE of the 1971-2000 Normal. I would like to be critical but right now I’m just plain confused!
http://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/ftpref/data/water/wcs/gis/maps/az_swepctnormal_update.pdf
Your Referenced Data Set:
ARIZONA
VERDE RIVER BASIN ………………………. 5 of 7 * 120
SAN FRANCISCO PEAKS …………………….. 1 of 1 25 71
CENTRAL MOGOLLON RIM ……………………. 3 of 3 * 117
LITTLE COLORADO – SOUTHERN HEADWATERS …….. 5 of 5 * 118
UPPER SALT RIVER BASIN / WHITE MOUNTAINS ….. 6 of 7 * 106
SAN FRANCISCO RIVER BASIN ……………….. 5 of 5 0* 103
UPPER GILA RIVER BASIN ………………….. 3 of 3 0* 115
The Snow Water Equivalent Percent of Average represents the snow
water equivalent found at selected SNOTEL sites in or near the
basin compared to the average value for those sites on this day.
The Accumulated Precipitation Percent of Average represents the
total precipitation (beginning October 1st) found at selected
SNOTEL sites in or near the basin compared to the average value
for those sites on this day.
* = Data are not available or data may not provide a valid measure
of conditions for over half of the sites within the basin.
Refer to the individual state reports for a complete data
listing and basin analysis.