‘On a whole other level’: rapid snow melt-off in American west stuns scientists Experts say brutal March heat has left critical snowpack at record-low levels – and key basins in uncharted territory

 

Nasa satellite images show how the snowpack in Utah has diminished between late February and late March. Illustration: Guardian Design/NASA Worldview

by  Gabrielle Canon

Snow surveys taking place across the American west this week are offering a grim prognosis, after a historically warm winter and searing March temperatures left the critical snowpack at record-low levels across the region.

Experts warned that even as the heat begins to subside, the stunning pace of melt-off over the past month has left key basins in uncharted territory for the dry seasons ahead. Though there’s still potential for more snow in the forecast, experts said it will likely be too little too late.

“This year is on a whole other level,” said Colorado State University climatologist Dr Russ Schumacher, speaking about the intense heat that began rapidly melting the already sparse snowpack in March. “Seeing this year so far below any of the other years we have data for is very concerning.”

 

Acting as a water savings account of sorts, snowpacks are essential to water supply. Measurements taken across the west during the week of 1 April are viewed as important indicators of the peak amounts of water that might melt into reservoirs, rivers and streams, and across thirsty landscapes through the summer.

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.

Snowpack in California’s Sierra Nevada. Source: Nasa.

 

California’s Sierra Nevada had just 4.9in of SWE, or 18% of average, as of Monday, ahead of the state’s official 1 April survey, according to the state’s department of water resources. In the Colorado River headwaters, an important basin that supplies more than 40 million people across several states, along with 5.5 million acres of agriculture, 30 tribal nations, and parts of Mexico, had just over 4in of SWE on Monday, or 24% of average. That’s less than half what was previously considered the record low.

Schumacher said the incoming storm could slow the early melting but won’t be enough to pull the basins back from the brink. Snow water equivalent measurements going into April were at levels typically seen in May or June, after months of melt-off, according to Schumacher.

The issue is extremely widespread. Data from a branch of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), which logs averages based on levels between 1991 and 2020, shows states across the southwest and intermountain west with eye-popping lows. The Great Basin had only 16% of average on Monday and the lower Colorado region, which includes most of Arizona and parts of Nevada, was at 10%. The Rio Grande, which covers parts of New Mexico, Texas, and Colorado, was at 8%.

“This year has the potential of being way worse than any of the years we have analogues for in the past,” Schumacher said.

The snowpack in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. Source: Nasa.

 

‘Nothing short of shocking’

Even with near-normal precipitation across most of the west, every major river basin across the region was grappling with snow drought when March began, according to federal analysts. Roughly 91% of stations reported below-median snow water equivalent, according to the last federal snow drought update compiled on 8 March. Water managers and climate experts had been hopeful for a March miracle – a strong cold storm that could set the region on the right track. Instead, a blistering heatwave unlike any recorded for this time of year baked the region and spurred a rapid melt-off.

“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.”

More than 1,500 monthly high temperature records were broken in March and hundreds more tied. The event was “likely among the most statistically anomalous extreme heat events ever observed in the American south-west”, climate scientist Daniel Swain said in an analysis posted this week.

“Beyond the conspicuous ‘weirdness’ of it all,” Swain added, “the most consequential impact of our record-shattering March heat will likely be the decimation of the water year 2025-26 snowpack across nearly all of the American west.”

Calling the toll left by the heat “nothing short of shocking”, Swain noted that California is tied for its worst mountain snowpack value on record. While the highest elevations are still coated in white, “lower slopes are now completely bare nearly statewide”.

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 is increasingly likely this season will be the one of the lowest 1 April snowpacks on record and one of the earliest peak snowpacks in the 21st century,” said Andy Reising, manager of California DWR’s Snow Surveys and Water Supply Forecasting Unit. “This year has featured many of the factors California is expected to see more of in the future: winters with more rain and less snow and stretches of hot and dry conditions.”

Snow around the Great Salt Lake seen between February versus March. Source: Nasa.

 

California’s reservoirs are nearly all filled beyond their historic averages, however, thanks to a series of robust rains. While this will help support water supplies, it will also mean fast-melting snow may be harder to capture.

In the Colorado River Basin, the situation could be even more dire. The two largest reservoirs on the Colorado River are Lake Mead and Lake Powell, which together account for about 90% of storage, are 25% and 33% full accordingly, as of 29 March, and there is little to fill them.

Already officials are in the process of relocating a floating marina on Lake Powell in anticipation of the quickly receding water levels, as experts warn the vital reservoir could drop to the lowest levels recorded since it was filled in the 1960s. If they fall far enough, the system would cease to function altogether. So-called “deadpool” – when water isn’t high enough to pass through the dams, generate hydroelectric power, and be distributed downriver – would be catastrophic.

 

The Colorado River has been overdrawn for more than a century but rising temperatures and lower precipitation are putting more pressure on the system that depended on by cities, farms, industries, and wildlife across the west. The extreme conditions have added more urgency and greater tensions to fraught negotiations over who will bear the brunt of badly needed cuts. Seven states that have blown past two key deadlines are still locked in a stalemate over how the river’s essential resources will be managed through a hotter and drier future.

But the dire snowpack numbers have pushed some municipalities to initiate early water restrictions. Local officials in Salt Lake City, Utah, have called on residents and businesses to begin conserving, with a goal to cut up to 10 million gallons, while city facilities will curb 10% of their use. Across Colorado, there are local orders that limit lawn watering, and in Wyoming residents were warned that full restrictions on outdoor irrigation could come as early as May. Farmers and ranchers across the west are also having to make hard decisions and big adjustments with smaller allocations of water and a recognition that supplies will be strained.

A troubling outlook for fire season

The fast-melting snow is expected to have profound impacts on drinking water supply, agriculture production, and outdoor recreation. It could also set the stage for bigger blazes.

“Unless there’s a major change in the weather patterns and we somehow pull out some sort of miracle springtime precipitation, we’re looking at an extended fire season,” said Dr Joel Lisonbee, senior associate scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Research at the University of Colorado Boulder, noting that there’s not a one-to-one relationship between snowpack and fire, but they are connected.

“In any sort of fire situation, you need some spark or ignition,” he said. Landscapes that would typically spend longer underneath a protective blanket of snow will become more primed to burn. Fire season may “begin weeks to months earlier than what we would usually expect,” he said. “These high temperatures and low snowpack will lead to a rapid drying of the vegetation that’s around, and that will lead to this early start.”

Dozens of large destructive fires have already erupted in recent weeks across the Intermountain West and the High Plains, spurred by extreme heat and low moisture. More than 1.5m acres have already burned this year across the US, more than double the 10-year average.

While Schumacher said he expects this year to be a standout one, the climate crisis is fueling warming trends that climate scientists have long warned will leave the west hotter and drier. Seasons with snow in the US west are shrinking while high fire risks stretch across more months.

“Climate change is going to result in a lot of these extreme events worsening,” said Dr Abby Frazier, a climatologist and assistant professor at Clark University, who added that compound events, where hazards overlap or occur in quick succession, are on the rise. The heat and the drought this year, served as a one-two punch, and will work together to produce greater dangers from fire.

She emphasized the need to take transformative action, and prioritize adaptation and mitigation. “It is heartbreaking to see it all playing out as we have predicted for so long,” she said. “The changes we have teed up for ourselves are going to be catastrophic.”

Australia urged to swap diesel for electric buses as fuel costs soar. "Electric buses are just 1% of the Australian fleet compared with 80% in urban China, a quarter in the Netherlands and 12% in the UK"

 

Electric buses charge at the Brookvale depot in Sydney. Australia’s bus fleet is dependent on diesel but most states and territories have transition targets. Photograph: NSW government

 

 by  Petra Stock

 Electric buses are just 1% of the Australian fleet compared with 80% in urban China, a quarter in the Netherlands and 12% in the UK

 

As diesel climbs past $3 a litre amid fuel security concerns, transport advocates are calling for the rollout of electric buses across Australia to be prioritised.

In Australia, just 1% of buses are electric, compared with 80% of the urban fleet in China, a quarter in the Netherlands and 12% in the UK.

Metro trams and trains mostly run on electricity, while buses – a core part of Australia’s public transport system – remain highly dependent on diesel, consuming about 530m litres a year.

 

Industry body the Bus Industry Confederation wants buses to be prioritised in fuel security planning.

“Buses carry more than half of Australia’s public transport passengers,” the confederation’s executive director, Varenya Mohan‑Ram, said. “Fuel security is not just an operational matter. It is a matter of social equity and community resilience.

“We’re taking kids to school, we’re getting people to work.

“We are the lifeblood of regional Australia, in terms of keeping people connected.

“We just don’t have enough electric buses to carry Australians every day.”

In Australia, nearly 42,800 diesel buses were registered in 2025, compared with 629 that were battery electric – about 1% of the heavy bus fleet – according to government data

 

Most states and territories have targets to transition their fleets. Canberra and greater Sydney will be fully electric by 2040. E-buses already make up about 24% of the ACT’s fleet.

The ACT transport minister, Chris Steel, said: “Each electric bus is powered by 100% renewable electricity produced in Australia, they are cheaper to operate and not reliant on foreign fuels.”

South Australia will hit 81 e-buses this year – about 8% of the fleet – while Western Australia rolled out its 100th, and all new buses bought in Victoria are electric.

An electric bus at a charging depot in Melbourne. Rising fuel prices and uncertainty about supply make e-buses an attractive option, experts say. Photograph: James Ross/AAP

“E-buses are by far the most impactful way to cut emissions from public transport,” said Cameron Rimington, a senior policy officer at the Electric Vehicle Council.

“The benefits of electric buses aren’t contained to carbon emissions.

“Every bus running on Australian-made electricity is a bus that isn’t dependent on the strait of Hormuz, isn’t spewing exhaust into our communities, isn’t contributing to lung cancer or childhood asthma, and they’re so much quieter – for commuters and communities alike.”

Helen Rowe, the transport lead at Climateworks Centre, said public transport was a critical service and buses running on electricity were resilient against fuel shocks.

As well as buying vehicles, governments needed to plan for charging infrastructure, she said. In Victoria, bus company Kinetic recently opened a purpose-built depot with overhead charging infrastructure at Preston, in Melbourne’s north, while New South Wales has completed the first of 11 planned electric depot conversions.

 

Australia has been slower than other countries to get moving but the current crisis, rising fuel prices and uncertainty about supply could change the cost-benefit calculation, making e-buses a more attractive option, RMIT University’s Prof Jago Dodson said.

“From a simple security point of view, there’s probably a premium to be paid – to know that no matter what happens outside of Australia, we can still run our bus fleets on electricity,” he said.

Buses were also flexible, providing a key opportunity to respond to the crisis, Dodson said. They filled crucial gaps between fixed-line services and could be rolled out to meet demand and improve coverage in areas that are not currently well-serviced by public transport.

“It’s hard to roll out a rail line quickly,” he said.

Communities in Melbourne’s west have been campaigning for better bus access and services for years. They want winding and convoluted routes converted to a fast and efficient grid better able to serve local needs such as getting to the shops, school or train station.

Elyse Cunningham, the sustainable cities community organiser at Friends of the Earth Melbourne, said a lot of people drive simply because there was no other option.

 “We know the government needs to make public transport more accessible as fuel prices go up,” she said. “Buses are the fastest and the cheapest public transport solution that the government can provide.”

 

Service improvements could be “life-changing” for people in the west, she said, including many on low incomes or migrant families. The switch to electric would be a bonus, making for a quieter and smoother ride.

A community-run e-bus pilot in Gippsland, Victoria, shows what could be possible, even in regional areas. Since 2024, two mini e-buses – nicknamed Sandy and Sunny – have been providing inclusive, local transport for hundreds of passengers in a region where the ability to travel depends on owning a car.

The volunteer-run service improved wellbeing by reducing social isolation, La Trobe University’s Dr Magda Szypielewicz said.

For Dodson, the fuel crisis provided additional impetus for change, on top of the need to transition to zero carbon transport.

“Let’s hope that we can learn some lessons from this time around,” he said. “Actually use this to recognise that we do need to change and that the security of our transport systems is a core national security question.”

Far more countries face critical food insecurity if world heats up by 2C, analysis shows. Exclusive: Food systems of low-income nations projected to deteriorate seven times as fast as those of wealthy ones

 

The IIED analysis shows the climate crisis will disproportionately affect food systems in poorer countries such as Afghanistan. Photograph: Samiullah Popal/EPA

by  Carmen Aguilar García

 

The number of countries falling into critical food insecurity could almost triple to 24 if global temperatures increase by 2C, research has shown.

Analysis by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) shows the climate crisis will disproportionately affect food systems in poorer nations, widening the gap between the most and least vulnerable countries.

Although global heating will increase the risk of food insecurity worldwide, food systems in low-income countries are projected to deteriorate seven times as fast as those in wealthy nations.

Ritu Bharadwaj, a researcher for the IIED and author of the study, said: “Countries already facing poverty, fragility and limited safety nets are projected to see the fastest deterioration in food systems, despite having contributed the least to global emissions.

 

“Today, nearly 59% of the world’s population already lives in countries with below average food security, and our projections show that climate change is likely to widen this gap.”

This can be prevented, Bharadwaj said, by “strengthening social protection systems that can respond quickly to climate shocks, investing in climate resilient agriculture and improving water and soil management”.

She added: “Food systems today are deeply interconnected. Climate shocks in one major producing region can ripple through global supply chains and trigger price volatility elsewhere. Even if high-income countries remain relatively food secure, they will not be insulated from the impacts of climate instability on global food markets.”

The IIED developed a Food Security Index for 162 countries. It measures the systematic vulnerability of a country’s entire food system and estimates how climate breakdown could affect it under three scenarios: if global temperatures increase by 1.5C, 2C and 4C above preindustrial levels.

The index also assesses the impact of climate crisis on four “pillars” of food systems – availability, accessibility, utilisation and sustainability – and shows the risk is not evenly distributed across the four.

Sustainability and utilisation are the most climate-sensitive pillars, which means early signs of climate damage will appear first in water, sanitation and health systems, making people malnourished even if food is physically present. An increase in climate risk will be also associated with a reduction in access to food, with prices rising and market disruption.

Residents wading through floodwater to cross a road near Maputo, Mozambique, in January. Photograph: Emidio Jozine/AFP/Getty Images

Among the worst-affected countries are countries such as Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Afghanistan, Haiti and Mozambique. Under a 2C heating scenario, the analysis projects that food insecurity will increase by more than 30% in these countries, leading to acute crises and famine, while in high-income countries it would increase by 3% on average.

Across low-income countries, food insecurity is projected to increase by 22% on average, under the 2C scenario. Low-income countries are responsible for 1% of global emissions while high- and upper-middle-income nations contribute to more than 80%.

“High-income countries will experience massive agricultural shocks, but they have the wealth to buy their way out of a domestic crop failure on the global market,” Bharadwaj said.

She also referenced a report by British intelligence chiefs about threats to the country’s national security from the climate crisis, saying: “If fragile and conflict-affected states face a systemic collapse, the result is massive global instability, state collapse, and forced migration. That is the national security threat the defence chiefs have warned about.”

 

 

EUA e Japão anunciam projeto de energia nuclear de US$ 40 bilhões

Usina nuclear na Pensilvânia, nos EUA              

 

Washington | AFP

Os Estados Unidos e o Japão anunciaram nesta quinta-feira (19) um projeto de US$ 40 bilhões (R$ 210 bilhões) para construir reatores nucleares nos estados de Tennessee e Alabama, após uma reunião dos líderes dos dois países na Casa Branca.

Os diálogos entre o presidente americano, Donald Trump, e a primeira-ministra japonesa, Sanae Takaichi, ocorrem depois que Tóquio aceitou, no ano passado, investir US$ 550 bilhões como parte de um novo acordo comercial com Washington.

Na declaração conjunta desta quinta-feira (19) sobre os chamados pequenos reatores modulares (SMR, sigla em inglês) também foi anunciado um investimento de US$ 33 bilhões (R$ 173,5 bilhões) em instalações de geração de energia e gás natural na Pensilvânia e no Texas.

Em fevereiro, os dois países anunciaram a primeira parte de projetos por conta do novo fundo de investimentos, com compromissos de US$ 36 bilhões em três projetos de infraestrutura.

A declaração desta quinta-feira assinala que os projetos garantiriam a segurança, ao "acelerarem o crescimento econômico de ambos os países, abrindo, assim, caminho para uma Nova Idade do Ouro da sempre crescente Aliança Japão-Estados Unidos". Os SMR serão construídos pela empresa nipo-americana GE Vernova Hitachi.

 Estados Unidos e Japão também divulgaram hoje um plano de ação sobre o desenvolvimento de cadeias de suprimento de minerais críticos, em meio à preocupação com o papel dominante da China nesse setor.

Também foi revelado investimento de US$ 33 bilhões em geração de energia e gás natural nos EUA

Em 2025, o país asiático se comprometeu a investir US$ 550 bilhões nos Estados Unidos em acordo comercial

UK must stockpile food in readiness for climate shocks or war, expert warns. Prof Tim Lang says country produces far less food than it needs to feed population and is particularly vulnerable

 

The UK is one of the least food self-sufficient countries in Europe. Photograph: Major Gilbert/Alamy

by  Helena Horton Environment reporter

 

The British government should be stockpiling food, according to a leading expert on food policy, as it is not prepared for climate shocks or wars that could cause the population to starve.

Prof Tim Lang of City St George’s, University of London said the UK produced far less food than it needed to feed itself, and as a small island that relied on a few large companies to feed its giant population, it was particularly vulnerable to shocks.

The first UK Food Security Report in December 2021 found the country was 54% food self-sufficient. Other rich countries such as the US, France and Australia are all food self-sufficient, meaning they grow enough food to feed their populations without imports if required.

The UK is one of the least food self-sufficient countries in Europe. The Netherlands, for example, which is densely populated, is at 80%, and Spain is at 75%.

“We’re not thinking about this adequately. We’re ducking it,” Lang said, speaking at the National Farmers’ Union conference in Birmingham.

“The default position that others can feed us is hardwired into the British state system, and indeed into the nature of how agrifood capitalism works in Britain. Others are wiser. Other countries are stockpiling,” he said. “Other countries have much more flexibility in their systems than we do. What we glorify as efficiency is now vulnerability.”

Other countries have emergency stockpiles in case of war, food contamination or climate shocks. Switzerland still has a stockpile sufficient to feed its entire population for three months and is increasing it to a year. The UK government’s advice to households is to have three days’ worth of food in their cupboards.

The government has no plans to improve the UK’s self-sufficiency, and will not set a target for food production. The environment secretary, Emma Reynolds, said: “I am not going to come up with a percentage. I would like us to boost food production at home, particularly in horticulture and in poultry where I think that there are real growth opportunities. But I’m not going to give you a figure.”

Self-sufficiency is likely to be falling; production of wheat, beef, poultry meat and vegetables are all down in the past year.

A small gap in food supplies could have drastic consequences. Experts recently warned that one shock could spark social unrest and even food riots in the UK, because chronic issues had left the food system a “tinderbox”.

Lang’s report for the National Preparedness Commission, published last year, found that the UK’s food system is extremely vulnerable to attack due to its concentration with a few large companies.

It found that the 12,284 supermarkets around the UK are “fed” by just 131 distribution centres.

These were a “sitting duck” for drone or cyber-attacks by malign states, he said: “The nine big retailers account for 94.5% of all retail food. That’s nine companies, using just 131 distribution centres. In drone war, that’s a sitting duck.”

According to his report, Tesco, which provides nearly a third of UK retail food, operates via only 20 distribution centres. He said: “When four of the 10 big retailers account for three-quarters of retail food, if one or two of these megafirms was hit in some way, or their tight system of distribution centres was disrupted, the impact on the public would be considerable.”

Lang’s report also said UK civil defence, which involves the preparedness of the population for shocks caused by war, received in 2021-22 the equivalent of 0.0026% of total defence expenditure. He added: “The reality is that there are no binding UK laws specifying duties on either central or local government to ensure people are fed.”

Brexit has also made the UK more vulnerable to shocks, by reducing the subsidies farmers receive to produce food and making it more difficult to import food from our largest trading partner.

 

In the three years from January 2021, agrifood imports from the EU fell by a three-year average of 8.71% a year, compared with the previous three-year pre-Brexit period, according to a University of Sussex analysis.

As climate breakdown makes it harder to grow fruit and vegetables in southern Europe and north Africa, due to extreme weather, countries such as the UK which rely heavily on imports for fresh produce will suffer.

According to the UK Health Security Agency, if the UK continues on current land use, climate and agrifood trends, “by 2050, 52% of legumes and 47% of fruit would be imported from climate-vulnerable countries and supply of vegetables, fruit and legumes is projected to fall short of what would be needed to meet UK dietary recommendations”.

This was already experienced in 2023 when bad weather in Spain and north Africa caused a salad and fresh vegetable shortage across the UK. More than 80% of the UK’s fruit and more than half of its vegetables are imported.

Lang said: “Climate change, the floods and droughts, these are part of vulnerabilities to the just-in-time logistics system of the food system. The key finding of my report was that we created a food system in the name of efficiency, which is now inappropriate for where we are, a concentration of big companies dominating, being the choke points. This creates vulnerability. Drone warfare and software dependence make it doubly vulnerable.”

The professor has called for legislation from the government to ensure the food system is made more secure and able to withstand shocks.

“I’d like it to be a food security and resilience act, something that’s clear about the fundamental purpose of food systems,” he said. The food system needed flexibility rather than being a lean, just-in-time system focused on profits alone, he added. “The purpose of food systems is to feed people. How, what, in what circumstances, if you’re a big commodity producer, is it really feeding people? Is it going to survive when there are shocks?”

Lang also said the UK needed to boost food security and produce more food at home. “We’ve got to build up more production here, not out of petty nationalism, but out of we’ve got good land, good people, good resources, good infrastructure. It’s a crazy misuse of land not to do that. We’re not getting the leadership we need from central government,” he said.

Global sea levels have been underestimated due to poor modelling, research suggests. Analysis shows average levels are 30cm higher than thought, and up to 150cm in south-east Asia and Indo-Pacific

 

The island of Toruar in eastern Papua New Guinea is threatened by rising sea levels. Photograph: Kalolaine Fainu/The Guardian

by  Tara Russell

Sea levels around the world have been underestimated due to inaccurate modelling, with research suggesting ocean levels are far higher than previously understood.

The finding could significantly affect assessments of the future impacts of global heating and the effects on coastal settlements.

Globally, the research found ocean levels are an average of 30cm higher than previously believed, but in some areas of the global south, including south-east Asia and the Indo-Pacific, they may be 100-150cm higher than previously thought.

Rising sea levels are a major threat to coastal communities across the world, and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that by 2100 levels may rise by 28-100cm.

 The latest research, published in Nature, combined the analysis of 385 pieces of peer-reviewed scientific literature released between 2009 and 2025 with calculations of the difference between the commonly assumed and actual measured coastal sea levels.

 

Authors Dr Philip Minderhoud of Wageningen University in the Netherlands and PhD researcher Katharina Seeger discovered that more than 90% of these studies did not use local, direct measurements of sea levels but instead used land elevation measurements referenced against global geoid models.

Geoid models provide an estimate of global sea levels based on the Earth’s gravity and rotation.

As a consequence, sea levels were undervalued by an average of 24-27cm, depending on the geoid model used, with some discrepancies as much as 550-760cm.

Minderhoud said: “In reality, sea level is influenced by additional factors such as winds, ocean currents, seawater temperature and salinity.”

 

The new calculations reveal that following a relative sea level rise of 1 metre, it is estimated that 37% more coastal areas will fall below sea level, affecting up to 132 million individuals.

“If sea level is higher for your particular island or coastal city than was previously assumed, the impacts from sea level rise will happen sooner than projected before,” said Minderhoud.

Describing the discrepancy as an “interdisciplinary blind spot”, the scientists are concerned that a large proportion of the studies analysed in their research, which they believe are inaccurate, are referenced in the most recent climate change reports published by the IPCC.

The study contains ready-to-use coastal elevation data for across the world integrated with the latest sea level measurements and calls for the re-evaluation of existing coastal hazard studies methodology to ensure climate change policies are accurately informed.

Winter getting shorter in 80% of major US cities, new data shows

 

Pedestrians in New York City on 25 February. Photograph: Charly Triballeau/AFP/Getty Images

 Researchers find that across 195 US cities, winters are on average nine days shorter than they were in 1970-1997

by  Sara Braun in New York

 For the millions of people across the United States who have spent the last month digging themselves out of above-average levels of snow and ice, this winter has felt especially long and harsh. But the typical winter is actually getting shorter in 80% of major US cities scrutinized by researchers, according to new data released by Climate Central, an independent climate science and communication group.

Researchers found that across 195 US cities, winters are on average nine days shorter today than they were from 1970 to 1997, as the climate crisis progresses.

For the purposes of the study, analysts defined winter as the coldest 90 consecutive days of the year during the past period, 1970-1997, and then compared the frequency of winter-like temperatures during the most recent 28-year period, 1998-2025. Across the country, they found that winter-defining temperatures are arriving later and ending earlier than in the 20th century.

Cities across the US south-east, north-east, upper midwest and south have experienced the largest average decrease in winter days, according to the research.

Juneau and Anchorage in Alaska have seen winters shrink the most, by 62 and 49 days, respectively. Approximately 15% of the 295 cities analyzed saw winters lengthen, particularly along the California coast and in the Ohio valley.

Ironically, the new data coincides with one of the most brutal winters in recent memory, including this week’s historic nor’easter blizzard, which meteorologists have said is the strongest storm in a decade. More than 2ft (61cm) of snow was recorded in parts of the north-eastern US, with more than 3ft (91cm) falling in Rhode Island – surpassing totals from the north-east’s historic blizzard of 1978.

“A shorter winter doesn’t mean no winter,” Mathew Barlow, professor of climate science at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, said on Friday. “Another important piece of [research] is that we expect greater precipitation intensity as the climate warms.”

The storm caused power outages for hundreds of thousands of people and forced public officials to implement temporary travel bans in New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Connecticut and Delaware, among other states.

 

However, January’s storm was likely caused by the stretching of the polar vortex, a vast circular ribbon of planetary wind. Research published last year found that the stretching of the polar vortex in this way is contributing to extreme weather in the US and that global heating, counterintuitively, could be playing a role in accelerating this process.

While speaking of Trump’s “ridiculous” argument against global warming, Barlow said: “If you wait for the cold day and you say: ‘Oh, it’s cold’ and you ignore all the other warm days, that’s not an honest attempt at assessing the data in any way, shape or form.”

Previous Guardian reporting acknowledged that a single winter storm in one region of one country tells us very little about longer-term, global climate trends. The world is not only undeniably heating up, but in countries like the US, winters are warming at a faster rate than other seasons.

Even with evidence of the devastating impacts of global warming in plain sight, Trump has made dismantling environmental protections a key priority of his second administration. On 12 February, Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) revoked a core scientific determination, known as the endangerment finding, that gives the government the ability to regulate climate-heating pollution.

Since 2009, this policy has allowed the EPA to limit heat-trapping pollution from vehicles, power plants and other industrial sources. More than a dozen health and environmental justice non-profits have sued the EPA over the move.

Warmer, shorter winters have significant consequences for both humans and the environment, including reduced water supply, decreased summer crop yields and worsening allergy seasons.

“These are not just impacts that you see when you look out the window or affect if you are able to drive into work,” Barlow said. “These are also pretty substantial changes to ecosystems, the health of our natural community and our water resources.”

Shorter winters are also creating challenges for local economies. The multibillion-dollar winter recreation industry faces challenges from rising temperatures and reduced snow and ice cover. In certain parts of Colorado, ski resort visits are down 20% this year amid severe snow drought.

“It’s important to keep in mind that extreme events, even extreme cold events, are still going to occur, even if they’re occurring less frequently,” said Barlow. “As winter gets warmer, we sort of lose the practice and lose the resources in place to deal with these extreme events. When we do still get substantial snow, there are just fewer people to plow.”