Monday January 23, 2023
Nevada Current —
Mountains in the southwestern U.S. are welcoming record-breaking snowpacks this year, but new research shows they are melting at a record pace too.
Winter storms have provided the Sierra Nevada snowpack with some of the highest preliminary snow levels in 40 years, according to federal resource managers.
Snowpack levels across Nevada are currently 144% of normal. The deepest snowpack in Nevada was last observed at Mt. Rose Ski Area with a snowpack depth of 134 inches, about 214% of normal, when compared to its 64 inch average depth for this time of year, according to weather station data.
Those yields are the result of weeks-long atmospheric rivers — streams of moisture in the atmosphere that transport water from the tropics — that brought heavy rain and high-elevation snow across part of the West, leading to drought improvements in California, the Pacific Northwest, the northern Rockies and the Great Basin, say federal resource managers.