The combination has resulted in some of the US' most destructive and costly floods, including the 1996 Midwest floods and the 2017 flood that damaged California’s Oroville Dam
For decades, Californians have depended on the reliable appearance of spring and summer snowmelt to provide nearly a third of the state's supply of water. But as the state gets drier, and as wildfires climb to ever-higher elevations, that precious snow is melting faster and earlier than in years past — even in the middle of winter.
Professional skier Amie Engerbretson is already noticing diminishing snow in her hometown of Lake Tahoe. She didn’t know what to do this past Thanksgiving because she couldn’t ski for the first time since she could remember. “The ski seasons are shrinking, and a lot of times the storms are coming in with more rain,” she says. “I can remember being a little girl with 19-foot snow banks in my front yard. I certainly haven't seen snow banks that high as an adult.”
The snow began falling in early February and hardly let up until the last day of the month, setting records at local ski resorts and causing havoc across the
Hurricanes have dominated weather news lately. When it snowed on Thursday in the Sierra Nevada, it not only added a new weather element to the news mix, it got resorts thinking about ski season.
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