Word: snowpacks
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Avalanche danger is highest just after a storm because the snow crystals have not had time to forge bonds to one another and to crystals in the existing snowpack. Typically, bonding occurs over a few days' time. Under certain conditions, however, the crystals never bond, but remain loose like a pile of poker chips. This dangerous situation commonly occurs in Colorado, where temperatures are very cold (snow crystals bond most readily close to their melting point). The shape of the crystals is important too. A layer of graupel -- soft hailstones that behave like miniature ball bearings -- substantially increases the avalanche...
...slide. And usually, there is very little warning. "Sometimes you hear a crack like thunder," says U.S. Forest Service research scientist Sue Ferguson, who has been caught in several small slides. "Sometimes the avalanche releases quietly, like rustling silk." Traveling at speeds that can exceed 80 m.p.h., the rushing snowpack compresses the air at its prow, generating a wind blast strong enough to smash windows and hurl skiers into trees. Once the avalanche stops, the snow mass solidifies, entombing its victims in an icy grip...
...condition of the snow below. Sometimes they even check the stability of the slope by carving ski-size slices through a test area, then standing or jumping on it. In general, south-facing slopes are less prone to avalanches because warmth from the sun promotes the bonding of the snowpack. Avalanches are also rare on slopes with inclines of less than 30 degrees. But there are exceptions to all these rules...
...haven't seen anything like it in 10 years: 20 ft. of snow already this season, compared with 6 ft. by this time last year. In perennially sunstroked Los Angeles and San Diego, repeated torrents have flooded streets. Rainfall in California is 126% above average and rising, and the snowpack's water content is 170% above normal. With the wettest months still to come, some reservoirs, such as Little Rock in Antelope Valley, right, that were low just months ago are now overflowing. Still, % meteorologists refuse to concede that the six-year drought is over, insisting that two more...
...Colorado River begins high above the tree lines, amid the glaciers and snowpack on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains. Icy rivulets collect and drip into streams, trickling and then plunging downward. In the peaks of eastern Utah, where the Green River hurtles south from Wyoming to meet the Upper Colorado, the water starts getting serious. It wants to reach sea level -- in this case the Gulf of California, some thousand miles to the southwest -- and nothing natural has ever managed to stand in its way. In its slashing, headlong rush, the Colorado gouged out a pretty impressive piece...