CACHE COUNTY, Utah — The amount of remaining snow still sitting around for Wednesday’s first official day of summer is impressive, but some of the patches of snow are starting to turn different colors, and it’s not because of dirt or dust.
“We thought it was some red dust blowing onto it,” said Tim Poulson.
Visitors at Tony Grove Lake in Cache County took in the peculiar and pink sight also known as “glacier blood,” “pink snow,” or snow algae.
“Well I hope it’s not toxic 'cause we have our dog here,” said Diane Poulson.
“Never heard that that could happen so from a technical perspective I was interested to see that,” said Loren Jorgenson.
The bloom has caught the curiosity of Utah State University’s Dr. Scott Hotaling. Hotaling is an assistant professor at the Department of Watershed Sciences.
“This year’s there a pretty huge amount of snow algae,” he said. “Folks that I know who have been in Utah for a long time that work at ski resorts have been kind of blown away by the scale of snow algal blooms.”
He said eating the watermelon snow isn’t a significant health concern, even though you probably shouldn’t.
He’s more interested in studying whether these blooms are becoming more common. If they are, that could increase the future snowmelt rate.
“We want to get a finger on the pulse and to know what’s happening and to start to keep a closer eye on it,” said Hotaling.
The dark pigmentation makes it melt faster than regular snow. Dust also brings the same effect.
“Compared to other big snow years, the snow melt was really quick this year," said McKenzie Skiles with the University of Utah. "Dust definitely played a role in that quick runoff.”
Skiles is an assistant professor in the geology department and the director of the Snow Hydrology to Research Operations Lab. She’s been studying dust deposition on snow in the Wasatch since 2009.
“[2022] was a record-breaking year," she said. "There was more dust deposited in the snow and there was more deposition event than we had ever observed before."
She’ll continue to monitor how dust could cause a more rapid runoff in years to come.
“It’s really important to forecast the timing of snowmelt correctly because we don’t have much reservoir storage," said Skiles. "So we want to make sure we use that water efficiently."
