Snow surveys taking place across the American west this week are offering a grim prognosis, after a historically warm winter and searing March temperatures left the critical snowpack at record-low levels across the region.
Experts warned that even as the heat begins to subside, the stunning pace of melt-off over the past month has left key basins in uncharted territory for the dry seasons ahead. Though there’s still potential for more snow in the forecast, experts said it will probably be too little too late.
“This year is on a whole other level,” said Dr Russ Schumacher, a Colorado State University climatologist, speaking about the intense heat that began rapidly melting the already sparse snowpack in March. “Seeing this year so far below any of the other years we have data for is very concerning.”
Acting as a water savings account of sorts, snowpacks are essential to water supply. Measurements taken across the west during the week of 1 April are viewed as important indicators of the peak amounts of water that might melt into reservoirs, rivers and streams and across thirsty landscapes through the summer.
A magnitude 7.4 earthquake has struck the Northern Molucca Sea region in Indonesia, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said.
Authorities have ruled that the death of Nurul Amin Shah, a 56-year-old Rohingya refugee from Myanmar who was left by immigration agents at a restaurant in Buffalo, was a homicide.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) appears to have dropped his demand that a bill funding the Department of Homeland Security include money for ICE and Border Patrol, accepting a deal he disparaged as unacceptable only days earlier.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian released a letter addressed to “the people of the United States of America” on Wednesday, hours before President Trump is scheduled to address the nation about the U.S. military’s ongoing operations against Iran.
The world’s leading football governing bodies, FIFA and UEFA, are facing several legal cases and increasing public pressure over their policies toward Israel, including a case before the International Criminal Court accusing their presidents of aiding and abetting war crimes, complaints over violations of anti-discrimination rules, and outrage over their positions regarding Palestine.
Leading lawyers and legal experts have called on the governing bureau of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to uphold the findings of a judicial panel that cleared the court’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, of wrongdoing following a sexual misconduct complaint.
Israel’s invasion of southern Lebanon is drawing parallels with its 1982 campaign, and could prove even worse as it becomes more protracted, European officials told Middle East Eye.
