Snow is unfortunately necessary
Snow: something I need to move.
My definition. Dictionaries list three meanings to the word “snow.” Mine isn’t one of them.
Some people actually make snow. Hard to believe. But I guess if you own a ski resort you need snow to make the place run. Hotels and restaurants in the Northwoods want a lot of snow and so do the snowmobilers that head north in the winter. Cross county skiers and snowshoers want a lot of snow. Hayward and the Birkebeiner organizers want snow.
Still, we sit here towards the end of January with little snow for the second year in a row and we just finished our second cold snap of the winter. Despite not liking snow, the cold reality is we need snow in many ways.
The average amount of snow in Central and NE Wisconsin measures between 40 – 50 inches, with Wausau averaging 64 inches a year. Vilas County averages 100 – 125 inches of snow per year due to lake effect snow. This is an average over like 30 years. Thank God snow settles and compacts. We don’t often end up wading through 40 inches of snow by the end of winter, but think back to 2014. Think back to the winter all the roofs caved in in our area. Too much snow isn’t good, just like too little snow isn’t. That 40 inches of snow converts to three to four inches of rain.
We need a lot more than four inches of rain per month in our growing season. Plants need a lot of water. A tree needs 10 gallons of water per inch of diameter. A 12 inch tree needs 120 gallons of water per day in the growing season. A single cornstalk needs up to a half gallon of water per day. That spreads out to an inch and a half of rain per week needed by a corn stand.
Farmers want enough snow to cover their green crops and insulate them from cold snaps. Our flowages need snow so the run off from the spring melts fill them up.
For hunters the snow brings mixed blessings. Coyote hunters need snow to identify fresh tracks to start the hounds on. Last year’s mild winter offered far less than optimal conditions for hunting coyotes, which left a lot of them running around. I can’t recall a spring and summer that I saw so many coyotes as last year. We heard them yipping from all directions every night it didn’t rain when we sat on the deck.
Bobcat hunters want fresh snow for the same reason. For the second year in a row the conditions for that pursuit fell less than optimal for the hunters. Hunters wait a long time for a bobcat tag and a poor year hurts a lot. The bobcat season ends later this week. Hopefully the dusting of snow last Friday helped a few on the final weekend of the hunt. Snow depth just makes the winter harder for deer and turkeys. The less snow on the ground the better they do. Ruffed grouse actually need 10 to 12 inches of soft snow for roosting in snow caves. Anytime the temps fall below 20 degrees their caloric needs go up dramatically. The caves keep them hidden from avian predators and makes them harder to scent by ground predators. The cave stays at about 32 degrees from their escaping body heat and reduces the amount of food they need to survive. And like chickadees roosting in tree cavities in the winter, the caves provide protection from winter winds. The protection from winter weather means less time spent on feeding and that means less danger from predators. Snowshoe hares need snow to provide protection from the hungry eyes of predators. Being white against a brown forest floor doesn’t provide much protection from hawks and owls. Kind of makes them standout to human hunters too.
In years when we get a lot of snow and cold, snowy owls fly down from the artic and winter by us. I like seeing snowy owls, a mysterious bird that we don’t see often. And without the snow we wouldn’t see them. I saw one last Friday.
Life in Wisconsin requires snow. If we live here we accept that, but I don’t have to like it. I keep telling myself that we don’t have hurricanes, scorpions, gators, and venomous snakes by every bush, but I’m not changing my definition of snow.
THROUGH A
DECOY’S
E
YE
BY
CHUCK K OLAR LOCAL OUTDOORSMAN
