Cloudy and Cool

by Paul Yeager, author of Weather Whys: Facts, Myths, and Oddities

We’re in March now, so the melting of the heavy snow pack across the United States is inevitable–and this melting is often accompanied by the threat of flooding along rivers and streams. Unfortunately, it appears as if the Red River Valley in the northern Plains of the United States is–just like last year–at the risk for serious flooding in the coming weeks.

The following map, compliments of the National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center, shows the water equivalent in the snow pack across the United States.

NOHRSC map of liquid equivalent as of March 7, 2010

The map indicates the amount of moisture in the snow pack in the northern Plains, and I’ll have more about the potential flooding along the Red River in coming days. Other areas of concern seem to be parts of the interior Northeast and Mid-Atlantic region, even though much of the deep snow pack in the Mid-Atlantic has, fortunately, melted recently.

There is also plenty of liquid in the snow in parts of the Rockies and the mountains of the West, but these regions are more likely to be able to handle to melting snow without flooding problems.