Record Calif. Snowpack Raises Summer Flood Fear
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
More snow than has ever been recorded this close to summer is blanketing Donner Summit, creating a potentially dangerous situation when the snow begins to melt, hydrology experts said Tuesday.
A summer heat wave could cause melting snow in the Sierra to cascade down from the mountains all at once, overwhelming reservoirs and river channels and causing widespread flooding, California water officials warned.
The disastrous scenario is a distinct possibility, officials said, because unseasonably cold weather over the past month has frozen the Sierra snowpack in place long after it would have normally melted.
"This year we have more snow than we've ever had at this time," said Randall Osterhuber, a lead researcher and hydrologist at UC Berkeley's Central Sierra Snow Laboratory, near Donner Pass, one of the few places in the Sierra where snow measurements can still be taken this late in the year. "California has the tendency to get very hot very fast this time of year. We're only a couple of weeks from the summer solstice and the chances of this are increasing every day. We've never seen the impact of full-on summer temperatures with such a large snowpack."
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