By Alex Brown | AZ Mirror
From the Rockies to the Cascades to the Sierra Nevada, mountainsides across the West are sparsely covered by the snow that usually blankets the high country well into the summer.
That snowpack is like a savings account that the West draws on when the hot, dry months arrive. It moistens the landscape as it melts, lessening the risk of severe wildfire. The runoff feeds into river basins, and the swelling waterways provide power to hydroelectric dams, irrigation to farmers and drinking water to cities.
This year, Western states are heading into the summer with a desperately low balance — threatening wildfires, drinking water, crops, electricity and more.
“This has been an extremely poor year,” said Sharon Megdal, director of the Water Resources Research Center, a research unit at the University of Arizona. “This has gotten a lot of people concerned and alarmed.”
While a late-season storm brought heavy snow to parts of the Rockies this month, the region remains in a deep snowpack deficit.
As warmer weather arrives, states are preparing for a dangerous wildfire season across the drought-stricken West. Farmers and cities are bracing for potential cutbacks in their water allocations from rivers that have less to give. Fisheries managers are watching for low river flows that could threaten vital salmon runs. And worsening conditions could threaten the supply of hydropower that provides cheap, clean electricity to many Western states.
