Definition of "snowmelt" [snowmelt]

• The runoff from melting snow. (noun)
• A period or season when such runoff occurs: streams that flood during snowmelt. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "So rather than something new and shattering, the study provides an insight into how the climate factors interact and show that the current snowmelt is what we would expect given other climate factors and thus isn't probably the smoking gun that some make it out to be."
• "For almost half the year rain and snowmelt from the mountains to the south and west cover the land with an irregular, slowly moving skin of water that eventually ends up in the province's northern rivers, which are sub-subtributaries of the Amazon."
• "This is barrel-chested water, snowmelt from the surrounding mountains that can't get to the sea fast enough to suit it."