Click the link to read the article on the Land Desk website (Jonatan P. Thompson):
January 3, 2025
🥵 Aridification Watch 🐫
Happy New Year! The Land Desk had a very mellow and relaxing couple of weeks off, and I must admit that I’m struggling to get back into the old routine. And I sure as heck haven’t gotten used to writing “2025” yet. Oy.
But no matter what the calendar may say, we’re one-fourth of the way through the 2025 water year, and one-third of the way through meteorological winter. That means it’s time for a little snowpack update.
This snow season got off to a rip-roaring start in much of the West, with some substantial high-country snowfall back in October and November. Then, as is often the case, someone turned off the big sky spigot, the clouds cleared, temperatures warmed, and the early season bounty became mid-winter middling to meager. Meanwhile, the high-mountain snow, while not necessarily melting, began “rotting.” That is, it embarked on the metamorphosis from strong, well-bonded snow, to weak, faceted, depth hoar1.
That’s a problem, because when another layer of snow falls on top of it, the weak layer is prone to failure, resulting in an avalanche. Sadly, avalanches have taken the lives of four people so far this season, all during the last couple of weeks in December. Two of the fatalities occurred in Utah and one in Nevada, all following a late December storm atop a deep, weak layer. The other one was in Idaho on Dec. 15. Two of the victims were on motorized snowbikes, one was a solo split-boarder, and another was on foot or snowshoes. Last season there were 16 avalanche-related fatalities across the West, all occurring after the first of the year.
Meanwhile, further south, the Sonoran Avalanche Center hasn’t had much action this season, at least not of the snowy kind. Most of the Southwest has been plagued by a dearth of snowfall — and precipitation in general — following a couple good storms in October and November. Temperatures have also been well above average in the southern lowlands. Phoenix set four daily high-temperature records in December, and the average for the month was a whopping seven degrees above normal; Flagstaff was also far warmer than normal and received nary a drop of rain or snow during all of December. And Las Vegas hasn’t received measurable rainfall since it got a bit damp (.08 inches) in mid-July.
This does not bode well for spring streamflows, particularly in the Salt and Gila Rivers. The mountains feeding the Rio Grande also are in need of some good storms to keep that river from going dry this summer.
We can take comfort in the fact that in many places in the West, snow-season doesn’t really arrive until February or March. So this could turn out to be a whopper of a winter yet.
🌵 Public Lands 🌲
Biden’s getting busy as he prepares to vacate the White House. The Los Angeles Times reports that he plans to designate the Chuckwalla National Monument on 644,000 acres of federal land in southern California, and the Sáttítla National Monument on 200,000 acres in the northern part of the state near the Oregon border. That’s what I’m talkin’ about, Joe! Now do the lower Dolores!
🦫 Wildlife Watch 🦅
The soon-to-be Chuckwalla National Monument lies south of and adjacent to Joshua Tree National Park, an area often targeted by utility-scale solar developers. That’s the sort of development that will now be banned there. Not only will cultural sites be protected, but also wildlife. A new study found that some of the Southwest’s best sites for solar overlap critical habitat for vulnerable species, including in most of southern California.
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The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is seeking any information on the killing of a gray wolf in Grand County, Colorado, in summer of 2024. The wolf, 2309-OR, was part of the Copper Creek pack that was captured by wildlife officials in August, after members of the pack had made a meal out of local ranchers’ livestock. 2309-OR was in bad condition and perished in captivity; a subsequent investigation found that he died of a gunshot wound. It’s illegal to kill wolves in Colorado, not to mention immoral and just a horrible thing to do. The Center for Biological Diversity and other conservation organizations are offering a $65,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the shooter.
📸 Parting Shot 🎞️
1 Andy Gleason, snow nerd extraordinaire, explained it like this after record-high avalanche fatalities during the relatively scant 2021 snow year :
