Most of the West Coast of the United States relies on a healthy winter snowpack to provide water through the dry summer months.
Most of the West Coast of the United States relies on a healthy winter snowpack to provide water through the dry summer months. But when precipitation falls as rain rather than snow, it can diminish summer water supplies, as well as trigger floods and landslides.
A new study in AGU’s Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres finds atmospheric rivers – plumes of moisture that deliver much of the west’s precipitation—have gotten warmer over the past 36 years.
Warmer atmospheric rivers generally produce more rain than snow, potentially causing problems for the region, according to Katerina Gonzales, an atmospheric scientist at Stanford University and lead author of the new study.
“The west coast relies on atmospheric rivers as a source of precipitation and for much of this region, it’s really important that this precipitation falls as snow, rather than rain,” she said.
Read more at Stanford University
