Discovery had me looking back

While recently working to reduce the years of clutter that have accumulated in our log home, we uncovered the six years-worth of phenological records I started keeping when Jodi and I first moved to our rural homestead 42 years ago. I kept the records for six years, until we started the Timberjay in Tower (a few months after its founding in Orr), and life suddenly got way too busy.
It had been years since I looked at them, and they served as a reminder that much has changed about our weather over the subsequent decades, particularly the timing of our seasonal changes heading into winter.
Back then, the first snow fell earlier, the cold arrived sooner, and the lakes froze weeks ahead of what we now take for granted.
During that six-year period of records, stretching from 1984-1989, I made note of first ice cover on Pike Bay in five of those years. The average date was Nov. 5; the latest was Nov. 10. While I haven’t made note of that event in recent years, it’s safe to say that Nov. 5 is no longer even close to the average date of ice cover on Pike Bay. At the rate November is going this year, it will be a surprise to see ice on the bay before the end of the month.
Our first snow also comes much later. Back in 1984 and 1985, our first measurable snowfall came in September, including a six-inch snowfall on Sept. 30. When was the last time it snowed here in September?
Back then, snow fell in every October. In 1986, we had three inches on Oct. 13 and we had two inches of snow on Oct. 19 in 1987. And who can forget the Halloween Bizzard back in 1991? Measurable snow is now unusual in October and we now often get well into November before the white stuff first covers the ground, this year being yet another in that pattern.
Sub-zero temperatures also come significantly later. Back in the 1980s, we averaged our first subzero reading by Nov. 7, (the earliest during the stretch was Oct. 30) compared to Nov. 30 today. As someone who’s hunted deer here for decades, the change in conditions on the deer stand have been remarkable. Opening weekend of the firearms season often featured at least a little snow on the ground and temperatures that made it tough to stay out all day. By the final week of the season, we hunted in full-on winter.
I make note of this not to complain, necessarily. Being able to nurse winter squash in the garden through October, with only light covering a few nights, is certainly an advantage for someone who likes to grow much of our food. Using the hose to fill the chicken waterers in early November is certainly novel, and a convenience to be sure.
But as I wrote two weeks ago, the shifts in our seasonal patterns can be disorienting. And they have real consequences. The earlier arrival of cold helped to begin freeze-up, which advantaged loggers and trail groomers, both of which contributed to our area economy. These days, wetlands are increasingly slow to freeze, and some barely get there before the spring thaw.
Human economies are adapted to a variety of factors, climate being one of the biggest. The later arrival of winter means the conditions that our economy relies on to provide access to timber and good snow conditions for visitors who come here to snowmobile, ski, snowshoe, or dogsled are more ephemeral than before. Ice fishing is more precarious, as solid ice comes later and mid-winter rain events, once virtually unknown up here, can freeze houses in, making them difficult to remove.
And it’s worth noting that the changes we’ve seen over the past 40 years are accelerating. Twenty years from now, winter is likely to be unrecognizable in our area. We’ll be waiting well into December for a first snow, and what does fall will likely melt before the next snowfall. Mostly green winters, like we experienced three years ago, will become the norm, not a record-setting exception.
Already, in the Twin Cities, green winters, where the snow no longer stays for months as it did in the past, have become commonplace. The only reliable cross-country skiing venues down there all have snowmaking equipment because they wouldn’t be able to operate otherwise. I grew up in Bloomington in the 1960s and 70s and cross country skied almost every day, not once on artificial snow. Back then, winters down there were like the ones we have here in northern Minnesota today.
While there are certainly advantages to our changing winters, I suspect many of us will be disappointed in the end. Like many folks here, I have come to appreciate winter more than any other season. I would wager that many of us spend more time outside in winter than at any other time of year, because we have traditionally had the snow and cold to support our winter recreation, whatever types suit us.
In most other parts of the country, winter is just a nuisance, a season that serves up the occasional inconvenience of snow and cold, followed by thaws and rain. It’s months of mud season. It’s also much darker. While the days are short and often cloudy here, particularly in the first half of winter, snow cover makes our landscape brighter, even at night. There are few times darker than a November without snow cover. A December without snow cover would be darker still.