Russ Schumacher

speaker

46 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Aug 2026 last heard 2 Aug

Russ Schumacher’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 1.

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Consider This from NPR · Much of the western US is facing a drought. What’s the best way to deal with it? · 2 Aug 2026 podcast

This past winter was, in Colorado, the worst winter for that mountain snow that we've had since snowpack has been measured in our mountains.

And it's also been very warm.

We had record-setting months for warmth in December and February and March.

And now we've gone into a quite hot and dry summer as well.

And so we've had fast-growing wildfires.

We've gotten some relief with the monsoon setting in in July and getting afternoon thunderstorms that have helped with the fire risk.

But then that's led to flash floods.

I think this year, going back to last fall and into this year, has been one of the worst that we've had.

But we've had a lot of these bad years with not very many of those bountiful years in between.

And so the supply of water that comes from that snow that falls in the mountains has been on the decline.

And then, of course, the demand for water in the southwestern U.S.

has continued to go up.

And that's left the Colorado River Basin, as well as some of the other river basins in the West, in the rough position that we're in right now.

Yeah, you know, we're cautiously hopeful that as we get into the fall, maybe in the next winter, we have this probable super El Nino that's been discussed quite a bit that's now in place and expected to strengthen.

El Nino leads to bad weather and climate outcomes in a lot of the world.

But in the western U.S., especially in the southwest, it does tend to be wetter during fall and winter and spring periods.

during El Nino, so there's a bit of cautious optimism that we'll at least get some relief from the drought as we get later into the fall and winter.

But in the near term, we've got another big heat wave on the way, and we can't count on it.

There's no guarantees with El Nino that it's gonna provide a lot of relief.

And then in the longer, longer term,

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