alt Hacker NewsI don't see the point in comparing photos of snow coverage in feb 2026 to the same area in march 2026. March is a spring month, of course snow coverage will be worse. Itd be more shocking if the snow coverage increased. they should show march 2026 vs. march 2025/2024/2023 etc.
Replies
Where I'm at in the Sierra, March is typically very close to as snowy as Dec/Jan/Feb and the snowpack is still increasing, not decreasing. Late March is typically the peak depth. March avg snowfall is 62", this year we got 1", the driest March on record, on top of it being incredibly warm.
> March is a spring month, of course snow coverage will be worse.
Peak snow cover in the west (California) is expected to be in early April. December was an intense month of rainfall and the snowpack was trending towards above average, but then a dry Feb and a heatwave in March not only ensured the pack didn’t grow but pretty much nuked whatever cover early season rains brought. It is shocking because in December it was looking like historical snow and it went into catastrophic shortage in 3 months.
California peak snowpack is historically April 1.
Utah and Colorado had an awful winter, full stop.
California did quite well in December. Then late February and early March came along, and a rain event at high altitude melted a lot of the snowpack, followed by a not-uncommon heatwave in mid-late March melted a lot of what was left.
“March is often a big month for snowstorms,” Schumacher said. “Instead of getting snow we would normally expect we got this unprecedented, way-off-the-scale warmth.” (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/01/snowmelt-ame...)
Beside that, the measurements are of how much moisture is left to melt off:
It’s not just the amount of snow left on mountaintops that’s concerning experts, but the amount of moisture still frozen within them. “Snow water equivalent” (SWE), a measurement of what could melt off to supply natural and manmade systems, is exceptionally low.
Yes, it would be great if there were literally any other comparison other than repeated but slightly different views of Feb vs Mar in 2026 only.
Spring starts the last week of March. lazystar out there in floral print dresses on March first looking like an absolute tool. Enjoy your train set!
They actually get more snow in March at these elevations, it doesn't melt until later in the spring... so while I agree a direct month comparison would be nice to see... this is still significant.
> The snow is melting so fast in the Sierra that, if it continues at its current rate, little would be left by early April. It’s unlikely to keep up this astounding pace, but there’s still high potential for the earliest melt-off on record in the state, according to Swain.
> “It feels like we skipped spring this year and dropped straight into a summer heatwave,” said Karla Nemeth, the DWR director, during Wednesday’s briefing. “What should be gradual snowmelt happened suddenly weeks ago.” This year’s was one of the quickest surveys they’d had, she added.
So the alarm here is the rate of melt, it should be sustained over a longer period. This is a problem because this is a natural "store" of water for downstream sources... if it's all released earlier it evaporates quicker and isn't replenished with more melt throughout the season.
March might be a "spring month" where you live, and also a "spring month" based on the equinox, but in the American West, peak snow pack statistically occurs at the end of March.
Use numbers, not vibes, when deciding if something like this is unusual. Dismissing this because march is a "spring month" is like asking someone who lives in Miami if they consider it unusual to have no snow on the ground in February.