Friday, October 26, 2012

Winter Wonderful

Snow!  Glorious snow!  

Like most (all?) of the country, Wyoming suffered from severe drought this year, starting with very little snow this spring and even less rain this summer.  For those of you who don't live in Wyoming, we absolutely need spring snow - our ecosystems are adapted to rely on it.  



Below Average 
 
The weather station on the Berry Prairie registered 6.29 inches of precipitation for the year prior to this snowfall.  That's 4.29 inches below our annual precipitation average this time of year... and in a place that gets only 11.5 inches of precip a year, that's a big deal! 

But if we can't get spring snow, we will take fall snow!  As you see below, the prairie is almost buried.  We have about 6 inches, which will melt over the next week and allow the parched ground to soak up the moisture slowly.


Keep your fingers crossed that this winter we can make up some precipitation ground.  


Written by Brenna Wanous Marsicek