Recent Dust Storms Changed The Albedo Of Colorado's Snowpack, Accelerating Spring Melt

By Chris Spears, CBS Denver:

DENVER (CBS4) – If you’ve been to the mountains lately, specifically, to elevations above 9,500 feet with snowpack, you may have noticed the snow looked dirty.

That brown color is a layer of dust that accumulated during recent high wind storms. The dust came from the dry landscape of the southwestern United States. Adding a substance with a darker color to the top of snow isn’t good when it comes to the spring melt. To understand this we need to introduce you to the term albedo.

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