More than a century ago, British meteorologist Henry Blanford noted a connection between springtime snow cover on the Tibetan Plateau and Himalaya mountain range and the intensity of the summer monsoon season in India. Hundreds of studies have supported this relationship since Blanford first published his hypothesis in 1884, finding that less snow cover often correlates to a wetter monsoon. But so far, researchers have struggled to explain why this connection between snow cover and monsoon intensity exists.