SNOW AND WATER SUPPLY.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 347, 1 January 1903, Page 5

SNOW AND WATER SUPPLY.

aaqji papata* *•«•■• agsisama ay

lew awry interesting conclusions have been published by the expert* of the United States weather bureau, who have for several years been studying the affect of winter snowfall on the wfttav supply of the sueceeding summer. The observations heva been confined is the arid regions of toe w***, more particularly Colorado and Idaho, where tha rivers and streams derive their principal water supply from the melting of the snow on tha mountain*. Tha generally prevalent belief that a winter of heavy snowfall la succeeded by swollen streams in spring and summar ia not necessarily comet. It is not tha quantity of snow that falls during tha winter so much as tha condition of the soil when winter sate in, the quality of tha enow and tha time when it fall* that determine whether streams shall continue full late fa the season and furnish abundance Of water for irrigating canals. An unusually heavy sntfwfall in March will certainly be followed by drought in late spring and summer unleaa this snow is preceded by a snowfall in the early winter. It is the snow that falls in November end December and thus becomes packed hard during the winter and melts slowly in the spring end summer that keeps water in the streams till summer is nearly over. Tha snow that falls in March and February has no time to become packed and hardened. The flrsft warm breath of spring melts it with a rush, the streams overflow their banke, freshets flood the country for a few days; then gradually the streams subside and a drought essuee. .«*