Record snowfall in the West will mean less water, more fires, and political chaos

States across The western United States is facing record low levels of snow in the middle of winter. The snow crisis, which could mean a drier summer more prone to wildfires, comes as states race unsuccessfully against a deadline to agree on terms for sharing water in the Colorado River Basin, the source of water for 40 million people across seven states in the West.

“Barring a truly miraculous turnaround” for the remainder of the winter, low snowpack “has the potential to exacerbate the ecological and political crisis in the Colorado Basin, and then produce really adverse wildfire conditions in some parts of the West,” says Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources University.

Data provided by the USDA show that as of February 12, snow was less than half its normal level in areas across nine Western states — some of the lowest levels seen in decades. It is common for a particular basin or small area in the West to have low snow density at this time of year. What’s concerning, Swain says, is the extent of the snow drought, which extends over a wide area from lower Washington to much of Arizona and New Mexico, reaching as far east as Colorado.

“The numbers are very bad,” Swain says. “If it had been November it might be less important. We’re not in November – we’re heading towards mid-February. The natural numbers are very high. Getting to half of them means the deficit is large, in absolute terms.”

As much of the East Coast freezes over in the first weeks of the year, many Western states are experiencing some of their warmest winters on record: Parts of Colorado saw temperatures approaching 80 degrees Fahrenheit at the beginning of this week. Although precipitation has remained steady in many states — parts of Washington even experienced catastrophic flooding in December — it is simply not cold enough in many areas for snow to fall or remain in snowpack.

A study last year by researchers at Dartmouth found that climate change has led to lower snow levels in the Northern Hemisphere over the past 40 years. The snowpack deficit has some troubling consequences for the West for the rest of the year. Forests with low snow mass dry out faster and are less resilient to wildfires when the hot season comes. (Forests destroyed by wildfires may in turn be less willing to maintain snowpack; some recent research has shown that snow melts faster in recently burned areas than elsewhere.)

Much of the West’s water supply, including the important Colorado River Basin, is supplied during the winter. The snow mass that accumulates in the cold months melts in the spring; In years with healthy snow levels, water makes its way into streams and reservoirs. Current circumstances pose a threat to this dynamic.

“In some places, we’re not having a traditional drought — what we have is a snow drought, where precipitation was near or above average, but where record warmth was actually completely destroying the existing snow,” Swain says. In other areas, he says, warmth “caused precipitation — which in some cases was reasonably plentiful — to fall as rain, even at elevations of 7,000 and 9,000 feet.”

Swain says it’s still early enough in the season that there could be some big storms to help replenish snow levels in some areas. “The problem is that we’ve accumulated such a large deficit right now — even if we have near or somewhat above average snowfall over the next few weeks, that may just keep up with the usual accumulation for the rest of February, without really erasing the accumulated deficit,” he says.