No doubt about drought where snow is concerned
Posted at 11:46 AM on March 5, 2013
by Bob Collins
(3 Comments)
Filed under: Weather
Remember all that talk about how a lot of snow was needed to alleviate the drought griping parts of Minnesota and the rest of the U.S.? Forget it, it won't make much difference, according to the state climatologist.
The DNR released this video interview with Greg Spoden this week, which pretty much leaves us wondering what's the use?
Last year at this time, we had the least amount of snow cover in Minnesota in seven years. It was considered a bad thing.
Comments (3)
Funny how Paul Douglas at the StarTrib keeps insisting it's going to knock us out of the drought.
No knock on the state climatologist, but the farmers I've heard from want the snow, so I'm going to go with what they think.
There are two types of droughts. One is when lake and river levels are low. That type can be fixed by snow melt because the snow melts, flows into the lake and the level goes up. Perhaps that is was Paul Douglas is talking about. The other type of drought is when the soil moisture is low. That is what the DNR guy is talking about. Farmers who think that melting snow is going to significantly increase their soil moisture are going to be disappointed. The snow acts like a blanket, keeping the soil frozen until most of the snow has melted away. Yes, some moisture gets into the soil, so, for a farmer, a snowy field is better than a not-snowy field, but what they should really hope for is a ton of rainy days after the ground has thawed. And not downpours but rather good slow rains that can seep into the soil instead of running off.
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