February's snows, weather bring a big summer payoff

Our daughter said recently, “February chews me up and spits me out.”

Lots of people are in the grinder with her. What seemed in the beginning like an easier winter has made up for it. Plenty of snow and blow, and flirting with zero on the thermometer. In researching the value of snowpack in Idaho I came across all kinds of interesting information about the state.

Idaho is 14th in size among the states, being 45 miles across in the north and 310 miles in the south. It’s length, 479 miles. We have the deepest gorge — Hells Canyon. The fifth deepest lake, Pend Oreille — at 1,158 feet a submarine testing site in World War ll. And visible signs of past volcanic action in Craters of the Moon National Monument, where astronauts have trained.

Idaho has four ecosystems — forests, grasslands, deserts, and wetlands. Forests — mainly conifer — cover more than 60 percent of the land. Here’s where the snowpack comes in. Conifers get thirsty. A 100-foot tall tree requires more than 11,000 gallons of water in one growing season — enough to fill a 12-foot by 24-foot swimming pool.

The baseline rain to snow ratio is 1 inch of rain equals 10 inches of snow — assuming the temperature is high enough to load the snow with moisture. A moderate rain at best will produce less than a third of an inch per hour. And some of that is apt to be runoff, not soaking the soil.

I’m not a math person, but without getting lost in these numbers it’s obvious a good snowpack, along with rain, helps the forest. Trees are something we’re known for here in the panhandle. Forests for livelihoods, and recreation, and sheer scenic beauty.

So the skies may be gray — or obscured completely in the falling snow. There may be plenty of shoveling and plowing and getting stuck. Lots of layering up to head outdoors. This year’s February may seem to go on forever.

But come summer there is nothing like the fragrance of pine on a warm June day. A canopy of shade beneath a hot July afternoon sun. The sound of wind in the treetops on a pleasant August evening.

I, for one, love Nrth Idaho’s trees. If snow is their friend then it’s mine, too.

At least that’s what I’ll try to convince myself when I’m out there shoveling and shivering.