HIGHMOUNT, N.Y. (AP) - Researchers at Columbia University are visiting New York's Catskill Mountains this winter to study details about how snowflakes fall and how they evolve once they settle on the ground.
Head researcher Marco Tedesco says a higher-resolution picture can emerge once volunteer snowflake hunters follow his frosty footsteps next winter.
Ultimately, their data could be used to provide clues to the changing climate, validate the satellite models used for weather predictions, and more accurately predict how the snow that falls into New York's City's upstate watershed melts into streams and reservoirs that feed the faucets of some 9 million people.
Tedesco says snow in the Eastern U.S. has its own character. It tends to be moister than the powdery snow that falls in higher elevation in the West.
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