Future winters promise less snow, more rain. Nobody’s prepared

Blue veins of ice streaked the snow this January in Salt Lake City, Utah. Snow hydrologist McKenzie Skiles eyed the veins, worried. The blue ice formed where water had flowed, then refrozen. “That’s concerning,” Skiles says, “because it tells us snow is undergoing midwinter melt.” She pulled out a thermometer and found the snow near its melting point of 32 degrees Fahrenheit.

In Salt Lake, snow shouldn’t melt in January. It typically piles through early April, the historical peak snowpack for cold, high western mountains. Melting snow starts dripping by midmonth, feeding creeks all summer.

But the temperature swings of climate change have arrived in Utah and other snowy places. Long warm stretches now punctuate winter. During a weeklong February heatwave, Salt Lake hit a record 65 degrees Fahrenheit—20 degrees above the winter average. “You can’t help but think, ‘Is this every future winter?’” Skiles says from her office at The University of Utah. “Is it just going to keep getting worse?’

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