The seasonal snowpack in Washington state was completely gone by June 9, 2015, about a month earlier than normal, according to news reports. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that western Oregon did not fare well either, with a 2015 snowpack season that peaked at 60 to 90 percent below normal.
On June 11, 2015, Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired this view of Oregon, Washington, and the Cascade and Olympic mountains. White areas on the mountains are primarily glaciers that persist beyond a single melt season.
An earlier image from May 2015 shows that snowpack in Oregon and Washington was already far below normal.
References & Resources
- Capital Press (2015, June 16) Washington snowpack officially gone. Accessed June 19, 2015.
- NASA Earth Observatory (2015, May 17) Diminished Snow Pack in the Pacific Northwest.
- U.S. Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service Oregon (2015, June 5) News Release: June water supply report. Accessed June 19, 2015.
NASA image by Jeff Schmaltz, LANCE/EOSDIS Rapid Response. Caption by Kathryn Hansen.
