Tuesday April 30, 2024
KQED —
Last year’s snow deluge in California, which quickly erased a two-decadelong megadrought, was essentially a once-in-a-lifetime rescue from above, a new study found.
Don’t get used to it because with climate change, the 2023 California snow bonanza —a record for snow on the ground on April 1 — will be less likely in the future, said the study in Monday’s journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The study authors coined the term “snow deluge” for one-in-20-year heavy snowfalls when it’s cold and wet enough to maintain a deep snowpack through April 1. But even among these rare snow deluges, last year’s stood out as the snowiest, edging out 1922 in snow water equivalent, said study lead author Adrienne Marshall, a hydrologist at the Colorado School of Mines.