Map and chart of snow water equivalent for January 2023 for the western US
Figure 5. The left map shows the net change in snow water equivalent (SWE) in inches that occurred during January 2023 with blue indicating a net SWE gain (more snowfall than snowmelt) and red indicating a net SWE loss (more snowmelt than snowfall). Note that the color bar at the bottom of the left-side map is not linear and exhibits different increments across the warm and cool colors to represent the values best visually in the map. The green shading delineates mountainous areas as represented in Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data. The chart on the right shows the monthly SWE changes recorded at the stations (circles) in each state; the state averages (diamonds) are also shown. Notably, the monitoring station averages are not necessarily indicative of the true state averages because the stations are not distributed evenly in space or elevation. — Credit: Mark Raleigh, Oregon State University