* Astronomy

Snow in the Rockies, dry summers in the Southwest?

New simulations of summer rains in the arid American Southwest show that they are influenced by the previous winter's snowpack in the Rocky Mountains.
Summer rains, called "monsoons," are the predominant source of rain in eastern Arizona and western New Mexico, says Michael Notaro, a climate scientist who is associate director at the Nelson Institute Centre for Climatic Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Anything that can help predict those rains could help protect people and an environment that are severely stressed by water shortages.
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