It’s late January and there is more snow on the ground on the Gulf coast of the United States right now than there is in Wisconsin.
It’s not uncommon to have a brown Christmas around here, but usually by January the ground is white for many weeks. Right now our area is running more than a foot below normal for snowfall.
Of course one never knows how this will play out for spring and summer weather. Last year, after 3 years of dry or drought summers, I focused on growing plants that are tough in dry conditions. Mother nature thanked me by dumping rain for 7 weeks straight in the spring and early summer. Those drought-tolerant plants hated all that water.
Another twist is that the high temperatures here have been well below normal lately.
The thermometer said -16 (F) when I woke up on Monday morning. Usually when it’s this cold, we have a blanket of snow to protect perennials, shrubs and trees.
I’m glad I was “lazy” this fall and didn’t clean up my gardens. Some beneficial insects and critters rely on stems and leaf matter to survive winter, so I decided to save clean-up until spring.
The leftover stems caught falling leaves which made their own protective blanket in some of my flowerbeds. And the birds have been scrounging for seeds in leaf matter.
Other birds have been sunning themselves in the sticks and leaves to try to get warm. You know it’s cold when you can see a Mourning Dove’s breath!
We have a chance of getting a small amount of measurable snow today, but it has to overcome very dry air first. The dewpoint was -18 last evening!
We can also get a lot of snow in February and March, so it will be interesting to see how the rest of this weird winter plays out.