You might imagine droughts as long periods without rain, but they can also be caused by warm winters and a lack of water in the snowpack—referred to as snow drought—in places that depend on mountain runoff for their water supply and storage. One study from University of California at Irvine, led by [engineering] assistant researcher, Laurie Huning, looked at snow-water equivalent (the amount of water contained in snowpack), precipitation, and temperature to quantify snow drought and track it globally. It found that from 1980 to 2018, the western U.S. experienced a 28 percent increase in the duration of its snow droughts, the most severe in the world. Read More