One week, it’s fires; the next, it’s feet upon feet of snow.

In the middle of January, high winds and dry conditions sparked wildfires throughout California.

Now, an atmospheric river is taking aim at the state with a huge amount of water. In the Sierra Nevada and Lake Tahoe region, forecasters are calling for between three and six feet of snow by the end of this week.

This kind of dramatic shift from fire to fire hose is something California is already used to. But the tick-tock between extremes  — or what climate researcher Daniel Swain calls “precipitation whiplash” — will only become more exaggerated as the climate crisis plays out, now and in the near future.

“The future, I think, is here in California and Nevada,” said Swain, who is a climate scientist at UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. Swain opened the panel on climate impacts and solutions. “Climate change has arrived. We’re already living in a different place than when 20th century policies, and water management infrastructure and flood control infrastructure developed.”

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