Hey, it's Flor Lichten, and you're listening to Science Friday.

While those of us in the Northeast have been shoveling our sidewalks again and again and again this winter, the Western U.S. is in a snow drought.

Snowpack in Colorado and Utah has been at record lows, and people are freaked out about it.

Not only because it hurts winter sports and those businesses, that's the tip of the melting

iceberg. Here to tell us more is David Condo's reporter at KUER Public Radio based in St. George,

Utah. Hey, David. Hi, Flora. Okay. Would you agree with my assessment that people are freaked out?

I think that is a fair and accurate assessment for Utah. Yeah. I mean, it's definitely the topic of

conversation. People are talking about it. It's the small talk that comes up at the grocery store or you

pass somebody you know on the sidewalk. It's a uh, it's a big deal. I mean,

Utah, as you may have heard is kind of builds itself as the greatest snow on earth. It takes great pride. It's a big part of the economy, a big part of the culture here, um, is winter sports. But yeah, even just you're not a skier, we can see the mountains wherever we go. I can see the mountains from my house,

you know, and that's the case for a lot of utons. And so just seeing them either bald or,

you know, with less snow than usual or kind of intermittent snow through the winter is just this kind of weird, constant reminder of the situation that we're in. And it goes way beyond winter sports, right?

What's the concern here?

Yeah, yeah.

So, I mean, the big concern, and I think a lot of Utahans are aware of this, is our water

supply.

I mean, it's really, it's hard to overstate how important snow is for our water in Utah.

It's the state estimates that 95% of our water supply for cities and communities

comes from melting snow.

I mean, this is the desert.

We don't get a lot of rain.

We don't have a lot of big rivers that are running year-round.

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