(Trends Wide) — Utahns have been seeing snow on the ground dyed red and pink.
It’s pretty to look at, but what’s behind this natural phenomenon dubbed “watermelon snow”?
Experts say that this is a normal phenomenon that appears in mountainous areas around the world.
Even if you wouldn’t suspect it from the colors of the snow, it’s the result of green algae blooms that thrive in cold, snowy environments, according to Scott Hotaling, an adjunct professor in Utah State University’s Department of Watershed Sciences.
The species of algae that causes Utah’s colorful snow is called Chlamydomonas nivalis.
Hotaling said that although snow in Utah has appeared red — the most common color of the phenomenon — there are types of algae that live in the ice and snow that can turn the normally white freezing precipitation into all sorts of colors, including purple, green and orange.
“Normally, (the algae) are in some kind of dormant cyst, and when there’s enough meltwater in the snowpack and enough nutrients, like during the spring, that cyst shape comes out of its dormant state,” Hotaling explained. to Trends Wide.
Pink snow in Cache County, Utah, in this Wednesday, June 21, 2023 image. (Credit: KSTU)
“It has small flagella that allow it to swim through the snow cover to the surface, where it receives a lot of solar radiation and flourishes,” Hotaling explains.
According to Hotaling, that bloom is a sign of the alga’s reproductive phase, during which a secondary pigment is created that darkens the alga’s cells.
This pigment acts as a blocker of ultraviolet rays that protect the cells of the algae from solar radiation.
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“I, who have very light skin, have a lot more difficulty in the sun than people who have much more pigmented skin; the same goes for seaweed,” Hotaling explains.
When the algae cells are heated in the sun, they melt the water around them that was previously snow, he explained, releasing water into the icy environment.
There are no human health concerns in terms of water quality and anyone who comes in contact with the watermelon snow, according to Hotaling.
Western US states such as California, Utah and Nevada have experienced droughts that left little snow in those areas in recent years, Trends Wide senior meteorologist Brandon Miller said.
“This year they’ve seen a tremendous amount of record snow in some places, so the snow depth was very, very snowy to stay well into the summer,” Miller said.
“For some, it’s probably the first time in years that they’ve been able to see this phenomenon just because of the busy snow year we had in this part of the world,” he added.
