Study says California's 2023 snowy rescue from megadrought was a freak event. Don't get used to it [View all]
https://apnews.com/article/snow-deluge-rescue-california-climate-drought-ef2e86e45c84b16b4ae63766f6372850
Study says Californias 2023 snowy rescue from megadrought was a freak event. Dont get used to it
BY BRITTANY PETERSON AND SETH BORENSTEIN
Updated 3:18 PM EDT, April 29, 2024
DENVER (AP) Last years snow deluge in California, which quickly erased a two decade long megadrought, was essentially a once-in-a-lifetime rescue from above, a new study found.
Dont 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 Mondays journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The study authors coined the term snow deluge for one-in-20-year heavy snowfalls, when its cold and wet enough to maintain a deep snowpack through April 1. But even among these rare snow deluges, last years 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.
Its timing couldnt be better. Last years snow came after a megadrought that started around the turn of the century and was one of the worst in more than 1,000 years. That drought is gone now.
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Adrienne M. Marshall et al, California's 2023 snow deluge: Contextualizing an extreme snow year against future climate change, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2024).
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2320600121