> I was with you until you said water runs over the surface of a snowpack
> efficiently. Unless it is solid ice, a snowpack is highly permeable and
> rainwater does not run off the surface.
Yeah, I wrote that as if it were a fact. What I really meant to
say was that the only two things about rain on snow that I could
think of that might cause...
Actually, I don't know for a fact any of the things I wrote
except for the heat capacity and heat of fusion of water.
I myself refer to this type of carelessness as "talk show
science", usually prefaced by "studies show" or "it is well
known". Internet science is one step up from talk show science.
At least here noone can cut you off if you want to tell me I'm
full of it.
Having said all that, I still think there might be something to
the runoff-on-snowtheory. Ironically (is nature capable of
irony?) you might see it with the coldest rains. Supercooled
rain falling on cold snow (not isothermal snow) could freeze
solid, sealing the surface. I've certainly skied (tried,
anyway) on snow sealed by melting and re-freezing that promised
superior impermeability.
> It's kind of like saving for retirement.
Reagan popularized it as trickle-down economics.
Ben
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