Yeah, so the big snowstorm didn't happen. I think of the shovel as a good luck charm, same as the shovel and brush in the car. If I have them, I won't need them. Put them away and change to summer tires, and we'll get hit with a load of classically slippery spring snow.
It's magical thinking. The weather doesn't care. But it's one of those superstitious observances that you might know is bullshit, but you do it anyway. And it worked this time. Some places got upwards of ten inches, but not around here.
An article on the New Hampshire Public Radio website, talking about young activists and climate change, stated that in the warming conditions, New Hampshire "will have shorter winters." Wrong. Winter will still be the same length, even if it is milder and generally more wet than white. Day length will not change. What tree species thrive will still lose their leaves for months. There will just be less to enjoy about the dreary trudge through the long nights. We'll still get plenty of raw, wet weather. It sounds a lot like what we just went through.
Decades ago I was in North Carolina at a week-long conservation seminar. We learned that the higher summits of the southern mountains had a climate like New England's. As you went up in elevation it was the equivalent of going hundreds of miles north. I don't remember the exact ratio, but it held true on up the Blue Ridge and northward until one reached the actual New England, where the alpine zone was like Baffin Island or something. Now the ecosystems are shifting, so that New England will end up like the Carolinas, and the southern highlands will end up as steamy rainforest with no treeline even on the highest summits.
Whatever happens, just try to dress for it as you set out on your bike.
2 comments:
The winters here in the Blue Ridge Mountains have in fact been getting milder. In the past 3 winters, I have shoveled snow about 2 or 3 times - and it didn't require hours of effort. If I was a patient person, I could have just waited for it to disappear on its own in a couple days. I don't think climate change is benign, but the upside is that aside from January and February, there are few days during winter when I can't get out for a bike ride, as long as I dress appropriately.
Although we could really have used more snow, economically and environmentally, I did appreciate not having to shovel off my roof at all this winter.
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