How might climate change affect Washington's Cascade snowpack? Let's think about it in terms of Washington's most hiked mountain. Here is where you'd hit snow if you went hiking up Mount Si every March 1 through the 21st century. This is a middle-of-the road scenario of 20 different scenarios for how the Pacific Northwest climate might change in the future. As the century progresses the snowline creeps further up the mountain as precipitation falls more as rain than snow. We still get snowy years at the end of the century, but they become far less abundant.
Materials: watercolor, ink, and lots of computing hours. Projected March 1 snow line for Mount Si for 1950-2099 based upon climate change simulations from Columbia River Climate Change project results.
For more information, see www.hydro.washington.edu/crcc and Chegwidden et al 2019 (https://doi.org/10.1029/2018EF001047).