snow is melting on Mt Hood

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BigBear
Posts: 1836
Joined: October 1st, 2009, 11:54 am

Re: snow is melting on Mt Hood

Post by BigBear » July 11th, 2021, 6:35 pm

Snow melting in the summer when the temperature reaches the mid-seventies at Timberline. Hmmm. Never would have guessed that would happening - I thought the snowpack increased when it got hot. Silly me.

I'm not understanding the significance of the video. Snow is melting and its running off in the streams. I would have been more impressed if the water level went up, but the wet banks tell me there is less melting now than there had been in recent days.

I did catch the KOMO news article about Rainier. They had a 175% of average snowpack at the start of June, and then came the furnace-like temperatures that shrunk Paradise's snowpack from 110 inches to 18 inches in just 21 days. That is an impressive meltdown, but then again, I'm surprised there is any snow left after that desert heat.

For California, the most concerning issue is that everyone has been talking drought. Bad news, they aren't in a drought. Yes, you read it right: California is not having a drought. Compared to the previous 100 years of precipitation, California is running dry. However, a few years back, the rings of the 7,000-plus-year-old bristlecone pines showed that California has had several multi-century spans of virtually no precipitation. The last 100 years were the monsoon years. The point I'm making: stop waiting for the rain and start looking at desalination plants in the ocean. The longer you wait, the thirstier you will get.

Final note. There's really very little you can do to have an impact on water conservation. Virtually all that falls as rain and snow is merely runoff. The biggest human use: irrigation and those golf courses. There's a really good book called "The Big Thirst: The Secret Life and Turbulent Future of Water" by Charles Fishman. Some interesting premises: 1) there is no more or no less water than there has ever been, 2) every drop of water has gone through the kidneys of some animal over the eons, and 3) your conservation of water will not help anyone in a different watershed. It's a pro-conservation book, but it also addresses the reality that what you do in Oregon has no impact on any other state or country's water situation.

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dirtman
Posts: 62
Joined: August 8th, 2014, 9:14 am

Re: snow is melting on Mt Hood

Post by dirtman » July 12th, 2021, 11:56 am

BigBear wrote:
July 11th, 2021, 6:35 pm
Some interesting premises: 1) there is no more or no less water than there has ever been
Maybe not quite true. It is possible that there was some urine left on the moon. Had I gone there, peeing on moon rocks would have been high on my agenda.

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