Snow Pack

20 inches (50 cm) of cover on
January 14

Middle of January and we're getting rain. Disappointing but not unusual. The good news is the existing snow cover is fairly resilient. Starting on Wednesday (Jan. 12) and continuing through to Thursday (Jan.13) 9 inches of snow was added to an already existing 16 inches of snow cover over unfrozen ground. At this point, the only thing the warm weather and rain has done is consolidate the most recent snow fall from 9 inches down to 4 or 5 inches.

One of the things in our favour right now is the layers that are within the 20 inches of snow. Five inches down from the top is a small, thin crusty layer that could help to slow any water percolating down onto the green surface. Five inches below this thin layer is another thicker band of "snow/ice" that resulted from exposure to an earlier warm spell back in December. This thicker layer could also slow or stop any water from reaching the green.

Layers with the snow cover
on 9 Green

The one more good thing (depending......?)as I mentioned in a previous post is the observation that most of the green surfaces are not frozen. If water did reach the surface it could easily continue into the root zone without the development of ice.

I've seen late season ice develop over unfrozen ground before. Usually, the ground temperature melts the ice from the bottom up and a little air layer develops between the ice and the green surface. As long as the ice is not so dense as to completely seal off gas exchange, is not on the surface for more than 30 - 45 days, and does not grow thicker damage can be minimal (the usual caveats apply to such a general statement: plant health and nutrition, plant spp., blah, blah, blah, etc., etc.)

I'll keep a watch over the next week or until the weather changes to monitor any changes to the greens surface and post any observations.