A blanket of white comes and goes from the mountains and deserts of the American West.
Published Apr 16, 2018
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station looked obliquely down at the steep eastern flank of California’s Sierra Nevada. Even from space the topography is impressive. The range drops nearly 11,000 feet from Mt. Whitney (under cloud, arrow), the highest mountain in the lower 48 states (14,494 ft), to the floor of Owens Valley (the elevation of the town of Lone Pine is 3,760 ft). The Sierra Nevada landscape is well known for deep, glacially scoured valleys, like Kern Canyon west of Mt. Whitney.
Published Mar 9, 2003
Seasonal snowpack in the Sierra Nevada depends on whether a winter is wet or dry, and 2015 shaped up to be exceptionally dry.
Published Oct 21, 2015
Thanks to a series of drought-busting storms, the mountain range has unusually thick and extensive snow cover this year.
Published Jun 15, 2017
Snow cover in late March 2015 was significantly lower than the previous worst year on record. The landscape change is stark since 2010, the last time the region saw average snowfall.
Published Apr 3, 2015
California’s Owens Lake was once part of a much larger lake and river system during the Pleistocene Epoch (about 3 million to 12,000 years ago).
Published Sep 12, 2011
El Niño brought more rain and snow to California this winter, but not enough to offset the water deficit built up over four years.
Published Apr 14, 2016
