“Twenty-four inches, not bad,” Brian Domonkos says, before taking the metal cylinder, now filled with snow, and hooking it to a portable scale hanging from his colleague’s ski pole.
The measurement is taken at the same point with this technique every winter since 1966 to determine the amount of water contained in this crucial blanket of snow in the state of Colorado, in the northwestern United States.
Data from this remote and picturesque valley that seems from another planet is essential to calculate how much water will reach the parched and sprawling cities of the western United States during the boreal summer.
“Between 50% and 80% of all the water we use in the West comes from melting snow from the mountains,” explains Domonkos.
This year there is a lot at stake. After more than two decades of drought, exacerbated by human-induced climate change, the region’s giant reservoirs dropped to record levels.
Although the winter brought rains of biblical proportions to the coastal cities, much of the water has already drained and flowed out into the Pacific Ocean.
So it is this snow, piled up among pine trees on top of the Colorado Plateau at an altitude of 10,000 feet, that will determine the amount of water available to remote cities in the coming dry months.
Among moose, deer and bears
In addition to taking measurements, Colorado Snow Center employees like Domonkos check and repair high-tech monitoring stations spread throughout the Rocky Mountains.
The information they collect allows scientists to predict annual snow cover, a job that is a “huge responsibility,” says his colleague Nagam Gill.
Its production is eagerly awaited by everyone from local ski resorts, to snowplow operators, foresters and state hydroelectric power generators.
But even more crucial is Colorado’s obligation to share a percentage of the water it receives annually with downstream states.
If you miscalculate the annual snow cover and send more water than it should to the river, “you’re never going to get it back,” Domonkos says.
Despite the challenges, the two scientists say the job has its benefits.
Their duties often take them, on skis, shoes, or snowmobiles, to beautiful, sheltered peaks and valleys in Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Wyoming.
Some work in distant places like Alaska, traveling to the most remote places by horseback or helicopter.
“It’s a dream job,” says Domonkos, who occasionally interrupts the interview to quench his thirst with a handful of the white snow he scoops up from the ground.
He frequently sights moose and deer, he says, and has already encountered grizzly bears “a fair number of times” while working in Montana.
“A Very Wet Year”
During AFP’s visit to Mosquito Creek, east of the American Continental Divide, the snow cover has remained relatively similar to previous years.
But it is not the same in most of the region.
In the Colorado River Basin, which starts on the other side of the mountain and runs down toward California, the snow is “a little bit better,” Domonkos says.
In fact, according to scientist Paul Miller, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is “seeing really huge numbers” of snowmelt that is “expected to flow into reservoirs throughout the upper Colorado River basin” this summer.
The scientific group’s complex computer models now include data from satellite and aircraft images, but they still “rely heavily” on these decades-old snow measurements, he told AFP.
His conclusion? “This is going to be a very wet year,” Miller said.
11 million acre-feet of water are expected to reach Lake Powell (the basin’s main reservoir), nearly double the annual average of 6.3 million.
An acre-foot is one acre covered in water at a depth of one foot, roughly equivalent to half an Olympic-size swimming pool.
Lake Powell and the Mead (another giant reservoir, near Las Vegas) are at a quarter of capacity, but “these numbers will probably get us to 30% or 35%,” Miller said.
According to current forecasts, this will be the ninth rainiest year in the history of the basin. If the low temperatures and snowfall persist, it could be in the top five.
But on the mountain, Domonkos, bundled up in a blue ski jacket, sunglasses and a beanie, remains cautious.
The drought has gone on for so long, he warns, that “it’s going to take several years to get over it.”