Mona Gelfgatt, Senior, Editor-in-Chief
Each year we yearn to look up at the sky and see those first few flurries of snow. White specks that make the children jump with joy as they go out to make a snowman, their noses bright red, and grins spread from cheek to cheek. However, this year, the kids have put spoons under their pillows, worn pajamas inside out, and put white crayons in the freezer, in anticipation for a snow day, more times than usual. These past two months deprived us of a white Christmas, snow days, and waking up to a winter wonderland. We’ve lived through the warmest eight consecutive years on record, and this December, we could really tell. It wasn’t until last week that the wind picked up and we finally received that cozy winter feeling.
This year, 800 snow monitoring stations showed more than 90% are below the median for this time of year. On January 1st, only 20% of the US had snow on the ground, and just recently it’s picked up to 45%. Early concerns of water supply for the summer are arising, specifically in the West, where the snow dictates how much water farmers use, what the wildfire season will look like, and the power of hydropower dams. Two scientists from Dartmouth University analyzed the snowpack in 169 river basins in the Northern Hemisphere. 82 of those basins had sharp declines in snowpacks that provided water to populated regions, and 31 saw that human influence was drawing changes. This human influence is also known as climate change. There is more often than not snow in December, and in 2023, the average temperature was 10 to 15 degrees higher. Rain storms have taken over, and while they may improve the water shortage situation, they don’t alleviate it. We all need to start creating a difference, as this lack of snow could reshape water supplies for more than 2 billion people. Every year the summers are getting hotter, and a strong El Niño is upon us, with the warmest ocean temperatures ever recorded in the Pacific.
If not for the sake of the planet, make a change for the sake of waking up to a snowy morning, hearing kids cheering as they sled down the hills of Gatchell Park. We have the power to make a difference, so why not use it? Why not bring back that winter wonderland?