‘On a whole other level’: rapid snow melt-off in American west stuns scientists
Posted by Portalrules123@reddit | collapse | View on Reddit | 82 comments
Only-Worldliness2364@reddit
So 40 million humans will all be looking for water at the same time this summer? Hmmmn that sounds like a bad time
fb39ca4@reddit
Let's see if the political will exists to divert water from alfalfa farms.
Cultural-Answer-321@reddit
I'll bet they'll be stunned as well!
hardleft121@reddit
Faster than Expected™
PobodysNerfect77@reddit
A lot fucking faster.
Something something net zero by 2050, lmao. Feels like a sick joke in hindsight.
Portalrules123@reddit (OP)
Probably should have attained net zero in the 70s or 80s if we wanted to stand a chance to be honest…..the doomers like Paul Ehrlich were right, just a bit incorrect in their timeline of when shit would hit the fan.
atridir@reddit
This is the hard truth of it. By the time it was really an issue in the zeitgeist it was likely already too late.
CerddwrRhyddid@reddit
How does you do the tiny tiny TM?
When I do it it looks like this^TM
cr0ft@reddit
You can also just keep adding tiny-markers; TM ^^^^^^TM
clubby37@reddit
I think he used the unicode symbol for it, U+2122. Click Start, type "char" and it'll find for "Character Map." Open that, and either scroll until you find it, or type "trade" in the "search for" box at the bottom. Select it, copy it, and paste it in to get your Very Official Looking™.
Doing it that way is kind of slow, but you'll remember enough of it to find your way through it again in the future. A faster way is to hold down Alt while typing 0153 in the numeric keypad, but that's pretty easy to forget.
CerddwrRhyddid@reddit
Thank you.
ttystikk@reddit
Worse than expected^^TM
bayoulisa@reddit
U can use emojis also!!
Hells, bells, and mother freaking cocktails™️
ttystikk@reddit
I was trying to make my TM as small as the one above my comment but I couldn't figure out how to do it.
PolarisVega@reddit
Utahn here. I'm really pissed at the state leadership for blindly ignoring climate change. I love Utah but I almost feel like we reap what we sow with the problems here. It's going to get a LOT worse. The fact they think they can host the Olympics here in 2034 is a complete joke. There was barely any snow this year. There's almost certainly not going to be snow in eight years. It really breaks my heart. I want to move out of Utah anyway, the whole American west is rapidly becoming unsustainable and if the GSL dries up it will become a toxic dustbowl anyway. We are in for a bad time.
Major-Blackberry-364@reddit
Don’t doubt the power of prayer
PolarisVega@reddit
Well, the governor did say to pray for rain once and we got rain but I'm pretty sure that was just luck and we are running out that...
Our governor is a pretty big shitbag and trying to squander our public lands along with most of the conservatives. It's a never ending battle.
ToBeFaaaiiiirrrrr@reddit
> California’s Sierra Nevada had just 4.9in of SWE, or 18% of average, as of Monday, ahead of the state’s official 1 April survey, according to the state’s department of water resources. In the Colorado River headwaters, an important basin that supplies more than 40 million people across several states, along with 5.5m acres of agriculture, 30 tribal nations, and parts of Mexico, had just over 4in of SWE on Monday, or 24% of average. That’s less than half what was previously considered the record low.
> ‘Nothing short of shocking’
That about sums things up!
Portalrules123@reddit (OP)
Yep, that’s the most shocking part for sure, less than half of the previous record low! Expect many people downstream to fully run out of water this year.
CerddwrRhyddid@reddit
Most importantly though, will the corporations still get their water?
/s
Ezekiel_29_12@reddit
They'll shutdown the farms before they let the cities go thirsty, plants don't riot.
Cultural-Answer-321@reddit
LOL wut? Do you even live in the USA? 🤣
Profits before people is no joke.
Ezekiel_29_12@reddit
Cities are more profitable than farms, until the food runs out.
kfish5050@reddit
The rich farmers have more money to pay the Republican lawmakers though.
planethouse555@reddit
It’s the other way around actually
FuzzyKittenIsFuzzy@reddit
Particularly in Utah
03263@reddit
We need that for the AI datacenters. Hopefully it becomes sentient and considered a form of life before humans go extinct, otherwise, well, that was a waste.
Murranji@reddit
No need to worry, of course the corporations will be taken care of.
ToBeFaaaiiiirrrrr@reddit
This is exacerbated by the Upper and Lower Basin states not being able to agree to expiring drought contingency plans: https://www.hcn.org/articles/the-colorado-river-rift-abides/
And so much of the US West is already in drought, and many areas in exceptional drought (D4): https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/
CerddwrRhyddid@reddit
I think the better word to use now is desertification.
ToBeFaaaiiiirrrrr@reddit
Yeah, this is aridification or desertification of the US West...
AlwaysPissedOff59@reddit
I remember seeing a prediction in the late-1990s of exactly this happening, with the Sonoran and Mojave Deserts expanding to their northwest. Eventually, rainfall even in the Great Lakes states was expected to decrease, but not to the same levels as seen in the Plains.
Looks like that prediction may have been very, very accurate.
theWacoKid666@reddit
I’m no scientist, but I’m not shocked any more. All bets are off with the climate and it’s wild how many people can’t see it.
ToBeFaaaiiiirrrrr@reddit
I'm still shocked at how quickly our climate is transitioning into chaos.
I cannot understand those people. For the last couple years, you need to choose to actively ignore the changes that are now plainly obvious, and accelerating.
LarryTalbot@reddit
Good thing Trump opened up the aqueducts in Central CA after the Palisades fires were out. All that water just sitting there.
deleted_by_reddit@reddit
[removed]
lost_horizons@reddit
You got a reply from the bot saying you’re shadowbanned. I know little about that but just letting you know that I at least can see your reply.
ToBeFaaaiiiirrrrr@reddit
Sometimes mods are able to manually approve shadow-banned comments, other times not. Looks like this time worked, thanks for commenting!
ThrowinA2shade@reddit
How do you know if your shadow banned?
bayoulisa@reddit
That’s wild!!! I can see your comment too, we may just be in the same club!! lol
CollapseBot@reddit
Hi, you appear to be shadow banned by reddit. A shadow ban is a form of ban when reddit silently removes your content without your knowledge. Only reddit admins and moderators of the community you're commenting in can see the content, unless they manually approve it.
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masala_mayhem@reddit
Why isn’t this front page news on New York Times and CNNv
Cultural-Answer-321@reddit
Exactly.
40-some-odd million Americans are about to get screwed hard. The rest will just be screwed.
CyberSmith31337@reddit
I think the displacement aspect of the reservoir collapse is being vastly under-discussed so as to avoid initiating a panic.
We’re talking about some 25,000,000+ people losing access to potable water. That’s going to trigger a mass migration event, and I think people genuinely do not understand what kind of ripple effects that sized migration has on every community. Those people don’t just disappear; they have to go somewhere else.
cr0ft@reddit
The real story is probably the Colorado river and reservoirs down there to 25% of capacity already this year.
Some people downstream are gonna get thirsty this year.
Jard4ni_@reddit
U+2122
did it work?
jbot14@reddit
April fools!! Right! right?
NottaNiceUsername@reddit
Year-round fools.
Mandelvolt@reddit
Decades of fools.
_YouDontKnowMe_@reddit
Fly, you fools!!!
lost_horizons@reddit
Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice… uh… you’re not gonna fool me again!
Fox_Kurama@reddit
Good news! Everyone else was fooled instead!
Able-Professor840@reddit
The only people stunned are the ones who didn't listen to the scientists telling this would happen years ago
Fox_Kurama@reddit
Decades.
dolphone@reddit
They were probably truly shocked to hear about gambling going on at Rick's Cafe.
Mystohaxen@reddit
Well the people that didn’t listen are still not listening so they are not stunned either.
Cultural-Answer-321@reddit
🤣🤣🤣👍👍👍
Successful-Try-8506@reddit
The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi becoming reality.
big_papa_geek@reddit
Excellent book. Terrifying, but excellent.
Dry by Neal Shusterman is another great book about exactly this scenario.
PM-me-YOUR-0Face@reddit
Thanks for the rec, I was looking for a new book :)
cranne@reddit
I live in portland oregon. I can count the number of times we got below freezing (including overnight) this year on one hand.
Its been an awful winter
brezhnervouz@reddit
Its been in the mid-30s every week where in am in Sydney, expected to be 37°C next week. Allegedly "autumn".
the_ghost_knife@reddit
Well, the federal government doesn’t seem too concerned so I’m sure it’ll be ok. /s
ttystikk@reddit
They're kinda busy right now, what with their self inflicted stupidity on the other side of the planet.
Portalrules123@reddit (OP)
SS: Related to climate and water collapse as the most anomalously hot March in the history of the American west has dramatically eaten away at the snowpack across various mountain ranges and river basins. Aside from the record low snowpack itself, the water that it contains as measured by snow water equivalent (SWE) is also at record low levels for areas like the Sierra Nevadas, the Great Basin, the Colorado River headwaters, and the Rio Grande watershed (this last one is at a shocking 8% compared to the average!). Experts are warning that water flows in rivers across the west will almost certainly be at record low levels later this year. Crucial reservoirs like Lake Powell and Lake Mead are already below 35% full and if they drop too low later this year a “dead pool” situation could arise causing the loss of water flow through the dam, depriving areas downstream of water and shutting off the hydroelectricity generated by the dams. Areas in Utah and Colorado are already facing water restrictions. Farmers in Wyoming are being warned that severe restrictions on irrigation could begin as soon as May. Experts are also predicting that a long fire season with an early start is almost guaranteed. All in all, expect rivers to run dry, fires to smoulder, and general chaos to ensue across the US west this summer. And by next year we will see the full impact of El Niño, I’m not looking forward to just how badly that boost in warming will screw with things.
ttystikk@reddit
The article quoted Russ Schumacher at Colorado State University. That's my alma mater and I live in town. I can recall only one other winter with drastic shortfalls of precipitation and it wasn't this bad and certainly not this early. We had record high temperatures for March last week and I'm sure it melted off a lot of snow. I was in the mountains just a couple of days ago and it already looked and felt like summer; hot, bone dry, brown vegetation and no snow anywhere to be seen.
In short, the water situation is scary as fuck, full stop.
Cultural-Answer-321@reddit
The only scientists stunned by this were the ones not paying attention.
Odd_Awareness1444@reddit
Sadly the wildfires this year will be worse than ever.
Wierd657@reddit
Continental
CerddwrRhyddid@reddit
Does it 'stun' them? Does it really?
Because if they're stunned at this point then they haven't really been paying attention.
Konradleijon@reddit
Fudge
Manycubes@reddit
Begun the Water Wars have.
gooberdaisy@reddit
Well it also didnt help that Utah only got one large snow storm and had average 65+ degree weather for winter. Snow melted within a day or two. I’m not looking forward to summer.
Druu-@reddit
OP I’ve been wanting to comment on your posts about the Southwest U.S. drought and tell you thank you for disseminating this information.
The size and complexity of this problem is hard to grasp. The bureaucracy between the upper and lower basins alone seems insurmountable. Immense change must take place in order to safeguard the future of the American Southwest and it is my hope that the people and leaders living there can model a pathway forward that faces the realities of climate change head-on and spurs the rest of the U.S. to take meaningful action in response to unprecedented suffering.
Portalrules123@reddit (OP)
No problem! I hope this drought spurs some positive change too, but I can’t say I’m that optimistic…
I first discovered r/collapse during COVID and in only a few years it has become exponentially easier to find daily articles related to collapse, which can’t be a good sign….I never expected a drought of this magnitude to hit as early as 2026! I predict that after El Niño hits articles about climate collapse will become the norm even moreso.
The_Weekend_Baker@reddit
It's a good thing we still haven't hit 1.5C as the 20 year average, otherwise I'd be a little worried. /s
The 36-month running average, though, is 1.53C, and whenever the final number is released for the scorching March we just had, the new 36-month average will likely to go even higher.
Grinagh@reddit
Another piece of the polycrisis
androk@reddit
The pictures show Feb to Mar of this year, do we have any pics of March 2025 vs now?
Distinguishedflyer@reddit
beebadee badee thass all folks.
TheRationalPsychotic@reddit
I wonder what Guy McPherson is up to these days. 🫠
Wide-Lengthiness-775@reddit
He is still producing as much as he can. I have huge respect for him and his work, along with James Hanson, Eliot Jacobson (Climate Casino), and so many more.
StatementBot@reddit
The following submission statement was provided by /u/Portalrules123:
SS: Related to climate and water collapse as the most anomalously hot March in the history of the American west has dramatically eaten away at the snowpack across various mountain ranges and river basins (you can see side by side comparisons of the snowpack a month ago with today in the article, Utah in particular looks pretty bad). Aside from the record low snowpack itself, the water that it contains as measured by snow water equivalent (SWE) is also at record low levels for areas like the Sierra Nevadas, the Great Basin, the Colorado River headwaters, and the Rio Grande watershed (this last one is at a shocking 8% compared to the average!). Experts are warning that water flows in rivers across the west will almost certainly be at record low levels later this year. Crucial reservoirs like Lake Powell and Lake Mead are already below 35% full and if they drop too low later this year a “dead pool” situation could arise causing the loss of water flow through the dam, depriving areas downstream of water and shutting off the hydroelectricity generated by the dams. Areas in Utah and Colorado are already facing water restrictions. Farmers in Wyoming are being warned that severe restrictions on irrigation could begin as soon as May. Experts are also predicting that a long fire season with an early start is almost guaranteed. All in all, expect rivers to run dry, fires to smoulder, and general chaos to ensue across the US west this summer. And by next year we will see the full impact of El Niño, I’m not looking forward to just how badly that boost in warming will screw with things.
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1s9qe0y/on_a_whole_other_level_rapid_snow_meltoff_in/odq7v73/