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Record Snowpacks Could Threaten Western States
21 May 2011 16:37 #1
by Wily Fox aka Angela
[center:pc00o70v]
In Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, plow operators are dealing with some of the deepest snow seen in years. Above, 23 feet of snow on Trail Ridge Road[/center:pc00o70v]
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. — For all the attention on epic flooding in the Mississippi Valley, a quiet threat has been growing here in the West where winter snows have piled up on mountain ranges throughout the region.
Related
In California, officials staged three days of flood training last week, including on Twitchell Island in the Sacramento Delta.
Thanks to a blizzard-filled winter and an unusually cold and wet spring, more than 90 measuring sites from Montana to New Mexico and California to Colorado have record snowpack totals on the ground for late May, according to a federal report released last week.
Those giant and spectacularly beautiful snowpacks will now melt under the hotter, sunnier skies of June — mildly if weather conditions are just right, wildly and perhaps catastrophically if they are not.
Fear of a sudden thaw, releasing millions of gallons of water through river channels and narrow canyons, has disaster experts on edge.
“All we can do is watch and wait,” said Bob Struble, the director of emergency management for Routt County in north-central Colorado. The county’s largest community, Steamboat Springs, sits about 30 miles from the headwaters of the Yampa River, a major tributary of the Colorado River that has 17 feet of snow or more in parts of its watershed.
“This could be a year to remember,” Mr. Struble added in a recent interview in his office as snow fell again on the high country.
to read more http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/22/us/22 ... artner=rss
In Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, plow operators are dealing with some of the deepest snow seen in years. Above, 23 feet of snow on Trail Ridge Road[/center:pc00o70v]
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. — For all the attention on epic flooding in the Mississippi Valley, a quiet threat has been growing here in the West where winter snows have piled up on mountain ranges throughout the region.
Related
In California, officials staged three days of flood training last week, including on Twitchell Island in the Sacramento Delta.
Thanks to a blizzard-filled winter and an unusually cold and wet spring, more than 90 measuring sites from Montana to New Mexico and California to Colorado have record snowpack totals on the ground for late May, according to a federal report released last week.
Those giant and spectacularly beautiful snowpacks will now melt under the hotter, sunnier skies of June — mildly if weather conditions are just right, wildly and perhaps catastrophically if they are not.
Fear of a sudden thaw, releasing millions of gallons of water through river channels and narrow canyons, has disaster experts on edge.
“All we can do is watch and wait,” said Bob Struble, the director of emergency management for Routt County in north-central Colorado. The county’s largest community, Steamboat Springs, sits about 30 miles from the headwaters of the Yampa River, a major tributary of the Colorado River that has 17 feet of snow or more in parts of its watershed.
“This could be a year to remember,” Mr. Struble added in a recent interview in his office as snow fell again on the high country.
to read more http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/22/us/22 ... artner=rss
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