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Cloud Seeding for Snow
How much snow does cloud-seeding produce? Soon scientists will be closer to knowing the answer. NSF-supported researchers have begun a cloud-seeding experiment in southwestern Idaho. Dubbed SNOWIE (Seeded and Natural Orographic Wintertime Clouds — the Idaho Experiment), the project is taking place in and near the Payette Basin, 50 miles north of Boise, Idaho.
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Storm-Chasing, Winter-Style
SCHUSS. The term for a straight, downhill ski run. In the land of the “Greatest Snow on Earth” — Utah — SCHUSS is also the moniker for storm-chasing, Old Man Winter-style.
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A Conifer’s View of Snow
If trees could talk, what winter tales they might tell: of the frozen soil in which they’re rooted, the snows that fall on their branches, the icy rivers and streams that flow beneath, and the health of the entire forest.
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Nature’s Igloo
The subnivium, it’s called, this refuge beneath the snow that’s insulated and maintains a constant temperature. It’s nature’s igloo for all winter creatures great and small.
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Where Have Our Winters Gone?
If you’re planning to skate on a frozen lake or river this winter, ski on a snowy slope, or, when spring arrives, depend on snowmelt to refill your water supply, you may need to think twice. December-to-March may be less like the winters we remember.
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The Tale of the Spruce vs. the Hare
It’s a new story of the race between the tortoise and the hare. Now it’s a dead heat between a white spruce tree and a snowshoe hare. Which will win? Scientists at the National Science Foundation Bonanza Creek Long-Term Ecological Research site in Alaska are chasing down answers.
Source: NSF News
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