Scientific data from ground observations, satellites, and climate models have not agreed on whether climate change is consistently chipping away at the snowpacks that accumulate in high-elevation mountains and provide water when they melt in spring. A new NIDIS-funded Dartmouth study cuts through the uncertainty in these observations and provides evidence that seasonal snowpacks throughout most of the Northern Hemisphere have indeed shrunk significantly over the past 40 years due to human-driven climate change. 

When winter began, drought and dryness covered almost all of the Great Plains and West, and the snowfall in winter 2020-2021 didn’t do much to help conditions in the Western U.S. Explore drought conditions across the U.S. this winter in a series of 8 maps.

In recent years, wildfires have become more frequent, larger, and burn at higher severity across the western United States and especially in California. A recently published NIDIS-funded study led by scientists with the Desert Research Institute was motivated by an extended dry spell in the winter of 2021-2022 following multiple severe high elevation fires in California.

These ten maps provide an overview of water storage in the West and a winter snow drought outlook for Water Year 2023. The maps  show how previous La Niña winters have impacted precipitation and temperature across the U.S., the latest National Weather Service outlooks that are influenced by these past La Niña events, and water supply issues in the West, and snow drought conditions.