What Are Snow Droughts? Is Climate Change a Factor?: QuickTake

Scientists distinguish among an expanding variety of droughts. There are droughts when it doesn’t rain. There are droughts when soil is too dry, when rivers and groundwater levels fall, and when water storage can’t meet society’s needs. Increasingly, researchers also are talking about snow droughts, which a new study in the journal Nature links to climate change. There are also connections between snow droughts and wildfires.

1. Is “snow drought” a new term?

The term is old, with use peaking in the late 1970s, according to the Google Books Ngram viewer. It bubbled up again during the 2010s ...