‘Snow deluge’ years on the decline across the US West, thanks to climate change: Study

 

While climate change is in general increasing the ferocity and frequency of severe weather events, the same effects may not apply to the massive snow dumps that occasionally pummel the U.S. West.

The quantity of snow that falls during so-called “snow deluge” years — such as the big 2023 snow season in California — is on the decline, according to a new study, published Monday in the Proceedings for the National Academy of Sciences. 

“There’s a common narrative with climate change that extreme weather events are getting more extreme,” lead author Adrienne Marshall, an assistant professor of geology and geological engineering at Colorado School of Mines, said in a statement.

“But with snow deluge, we’re not seeing that’s the case,” Marshall continued. “Instead, what we’re seeing across the western U.S. is that snow deluges decline, too.”...more