🍉’Watermelon Snow’ … Have you seen any here in Utah?
🤯Believe it or not, it forms from a green algal bloom.
📸Brent Haddock & Ryan Hamilton pic.twitter.com/WEPEw5AhLN
— 𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐒𝐜𝐡𝐧𝐞𝐞 (@brian_schnee) June 27, 2023
Utah enjoyed the fruits of a record snowpack earlier this year and resorts like Brighton and Alta, for example, were buried by somewhere in the ballpark of about 800 inches of powder. Many experts warned all that snow would trigger floods once it started to melt but officials are now saying nearly 99 percent of the state’s record snowpack has melted without any such problems. The snowmelt has, however, revealed pockets of “watermelon snow” around the state and people are justifiably intrigued by the phenomenon.
Oddly enough, the images floating around the internet of snow with hints of red and pink highlights are the result of green algal blooms, according to Scott Hotaling, an assistant professor with Utah State University’s Watershed Sciences Department. He’s studied watermelon snow for several years and says the green algae lays dormant in the snowpack or in the soil during the summer and winter, revealing itself when the right mix of conditions come together.
“In the spring, when there’s enough moisture in the snowpack and there’s the right nutrient combination and temperature, that dormant cyst is triggered to actually move into its more reproductive life stage and it swims its way to the surface of the snowpack with this little thing; this little piece called a flagella. And then it blooms,” he told 2KUTV. “The bloom is what people actually see. That red pigmentation is part of the blooming reproductive process for the algae’s life cycle and that red coloration is actually a red pigment that the algae produced, because they’re in a really high UV environment.”
Hotaling says the whole process actually triggers part of the melting itself by producing pigment and absorbing light, and he also added that it’s all totally harmless to humans.
