The Bloomberg article The End of Snow Threatens to Upend 76 Million American Lives by Baker et. el. (8/3/2022) has some excellent graphs, such as the one copied here, and overview of the water issues in the west.
The West’s mountain snowpacks have shrunk, on average, 23% between 1955 and 2022. By the end of the 21st century, California could lose as much as 79% of its peak snowpack by water volume.
This impacts all of the US:
The California Rice Commission says only about half of the 500,000 acres of rice typically planted in the state will be grown this year.
California alone accounts for a third of all vegetables grown in the US and two-thirds of the nation’s fruits and nuts.
The article includes a map of CA with charts of current reservoir levels as well as a couple of then and now photos. The data seems to come from the California Data Exchange Center.
